[PLUG] remapping keys in VGA console

Carlos Konstanski ckonstanski at pippiandcarlos.com
Sun Aug 21 18:33:08 UTC 2011


On 08/21/2011 11:57 AM, Martin A. Brown wrote:
> 
> Greetings,
> 
>  : I just used xmodmap to remap a key. It works great in X. But not 
>  : in the VGA console.
> 
> That is true.  X and the console use two different mechanism for 
> remapping keys.  It can be wonderfully annoying if you find yourself 
> switching layouts from the default.
> 
>  : I tried editing the file in /usr/share/keymaps (Gentoo system) to 
>  : no avail. Is this the right place, but maybe I just wasn't doing 
>  : it right?
> 
> I suspect that /usr/share/keymaps on your Gentoo system is the 
> location of the console keymap files read by the loadkeys utility 
> ('man 1 loadkeys').  You can switch layouts using loadkeys.  I use 
> the dvorak layout and switch this way:
> 
>   zcat /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.map.gz | loadkeys -
> 
>  : Is there a tool similar to xev that works in non-X shells? Are 
>  : the kexcodes identical in X and non-X environments?
> 
> I do not think that they keycodes are identical; in fact, they seem 
> to be two very different worlds.  Also, I have never found something 
> similar to 'xev', which I admit is remarkably convenient when you 
> find yourself messing with this sort of remapping.
> 
> Good luck,
> 
> -Martin

Thanks, very helpful. The keycodes do not match between X and non-X. I found
that my key mapping did work, but affected the wrong key. It's down to
figuring out the keymaps in VGA mode. I'll look at the kernel source. I
remembering seeing a header file with a keymap in there somewhere.

Carlos



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