johnsu01 ([info]johnsu01) wrote,
@ 2009-05-03 00:28:00
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Current music:Christian McBride -- Song for Maya
Entry tags:debian, emacs, gdium, x

Documentation for XkbOptions

Today I learned that in Debian, all of those nifty xkboptions like "ctrl:nocaps" are listed in files in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules.

However, none of them have helped me get my left Alt key to stop behaving like an AltGr key. xev even says that the key is Alt_L, but that's not how it's acting. The right Alt key — the one actually labeled AltGr — also behaves like AltGr. Not having an Alt key is seriously cramping my Emacs usage.

On the upside, I now have the X server starting on the Gdium, though only by using fbdev. The siliconmotion driver segfaults. But hey, progress.


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xmodmap?
[info]brontitall.myopenid.com
2009-05-03 09:38 am UTC (link)
I'm no expert, but I have done a little with modifier keys. I'm also mostly from a Sun keyboard background, where my primary interest was in getting the meta (diamond) key to actually work as, you know, meta.

Anyway, I'd try xmodmap and make sure that the Alt_L key isn't also mapped to Compose or something, since that could be causing problems.

I found lots of useful stuff about this in the xkeycaps manual (http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/man.html)

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Re: xmodmap?
[info]johnsu01
2009-05-03 03:38 pm UTC (link)
So, I just figured out that this is actually just a problem in xterm, not in X generally. Feeling a little dumb about that -- I did test in Iceweasel as well, and I wasn't able to access the menubar shortcuts with Alt, but apparently that was just a focus issue. This should then just be a matter of setting the right Xresource.

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Re: xmodmap?
[info]johnsu01
2009-05-04 12:29 am UTC (link)
Actually, I just switched to urxvt and it's working fine :).

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[info]shipitfish
2009-05-04 04:32 pm UTC (link)
Sounds like you need a keyboard with a proper META key. :) In seriousness, I often make left CTRL equivalent to ALT when I need an ALT, since my CAPS LOCK is a CTRL anyway. Does this perhaps work here?

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[info]johnsu01
2009-05-04 10:13 pm UTC (link)
Hm, I could try that I suppose, though I'm not sure it would work because they keysym of the nonworking ALT key was actually set to Alt_L like it should be. So making another key Alt_L might not help. Anyway, I'm happy enough using urxvt for now, and no troubles with the key there.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Xkb options on Ubuntu
(Anonymous)
2009-05-15 04:20 pm UTC (link)
I've had trouble with my laptop after I upgraded my OS and dug around to separate the functionality of Meta and Alt. I wanted my left Alt key to work as Meta so that I could use it exclusively for Emacs and my right alt to be a general Alt key so that I could use it for WM and application specific key combos (my thinkpad doesn't have a windows key). I fished around a little bit and managed to get it to work the way I want it although it's quite messy. You might find something useful on my article describing it. It's mostly a "note to self" rather than a tutorial though. http://nibrahim.net.in/journal/?p=216

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