Configuring a US keyboard with umlauts in sid (hal etc?)

[Frank Küster]

Hi,

I have a Thinkpad T43p which has a quite complete keyboard, and it comes
with US layout. Which I like. However, I'd also like to be able to
easily input german Umlauts. I don't like the compose approach, it
needs too much keypressing for fast typing. Instead I want to use the
AltGr key to turn AltGr+a to ä, AltGr+A to Ä and so forth.

In lenny this worked fine. Now I have upgraded to unstable, and it
stopped working. I'm writing here to get some help.

I found out that there are two places that claim to be responsible for
keyboard configuration now: One is /etc/default/keyboard, the other
would be /etc/hal/fdi/policy.

However, I can't figure out how to do it right. /etc/default/keyboard
has keywords just like the old xorg.conf, but not quite. There, I have

XKBMODEL, XKBLAYOUT, XKBVARIANT, and XKBOPTIONS

in xorg.conf, I used this definition for my keyboard:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
# Option "XkbVariant" "intl"
Option "XkbModel" "thinkpad"
Option "XkbOptions" "compose:caps,lv3:ralt_switch_multikey,eurosign:e"
EndSection

So I tried

$ egrep -v '^#|^$' /etc/default/keyboard
XKBMODEL="thinkpad"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBOPTIONS="compose:caps,lv3:ralt_switch_multikey,eurosign:e"

(and also with XKBVARIANT="intl" and "intl-altgr"), but that doesn't
recover the old behavior. It seems those xorg options are simply not
supported, as "dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration" tells me.

So I looked at the other way, but I can't find an example file that
looks like it could contain settings like the ones above. Finally, I
find /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-x11-evdev.fdi - which
seems to delegate its configuration to evdev, which is documented as
being configured in xorg.conf. Err.

Any hints how I should proceed?

Regards, Frank

--
Dr. Frank Küster
Debian Developer (TeXLive)
VCD Aschaffenburg-Miltenberg, ADFC Miltenberg
B90/Grüne KV Miltenberg

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[Howard Eisenberger]

On 2009-11-23, Frank Küster wrote:

> I have a Thinkpad T43p which has a quite complete keyboard, and it comes
> with US layout. Which I like. However, I'd also like to be able to
> easily input german Umlauts. I don't like the compose approach, it
> needs too much keypressing for fast typing. Instead I want to use the
> AltGr key to turn AltGr+a to ä, AltGr+A to Ä and so forth.
>
> In lenny this worked fine. Now I have upgraded to unstable, and it
> stopped working. I'm writing here to get some help.

> in xorg.conf, I used this definition for my keyboard:
>
> Section "InputDevice"

> Option "XkbOptions" "compose:caps,lv3:ralt_switch_multikey,eurosign:e"
> EndSection
>

> Any hints how I should proceed?

You might want to have a look at the setxkbmap command.

I do use compose and previously had this line in the "Input Device"
Section in my old xorg.conf

Option "XkbOptions" "compose:menu"

My current xorg.conf doesn't have an "Input Device" Section at all
and I have this line in the startup script for my x-session-manager
(openbox-session)

setxkbmap -model evdev -option compose:menu

I suppose it depends on how you start X as to where you would put
this. Someone else may be able to help with that. As far as I know,
you can run setxkbmap in an x-terminal to test it.

Regards,

Howard E.
Ottawa

[Kelly Clowers]

In newer versions, you can put stuff like that in /etc/default/console-setup
or most recently in /etc/default/keyboard This works on TTYs and X.

e.g. from my /etc/default/keyboard :

XKBMODEL="jp106"
XKBLAYOUT="jp,us"
XKBVARIANT="OADG109A,intl"
XKBOPTIONS="grp:shift_toggle,ctrl:nocaps"

OP might need the intl or alt-intl variant of the us layout. I think alt-intl
uses deadkeys, while intl has some AltGr forms and some deadkeys.

Cheers,
Kelly Clowers

[Howard Eisenberger]

On 2009-11-25, Kelly Clowers wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 14:59, Howard Eisenberger wrote:
>> On 2009-11-23, Frank Küster wrote:
>>
>>> in xorg.conf, I used this definition for my keyboard:
>>>
>>> Section "InputDevice"
>>>  Option  "XkbOptions" "compose:caps,lv3:ralt_switch_multikey,eurosign:e"
>>> EndSection
>>>

>> I do use compose and previously had this line in the "Input Device"
>> Section in my old xorg.conf
>>
>>      Option  "XkbOptions"  "compose:menu"
>>

>> setxkbmap -model evdev -option compose:menu
>>

> In newer versions, you can put stuff like that in /etc/default/console-setup
> or most recently in /etc/default/keyboard This works on TTYs and X.

I thought the OP said he tried this, but it didn't work. It just
worked for me using XKBOPTIONS in /etc/default/console-setup after
I rebooted.

Thanks. Probably easier than the way I was doing it.

Regards,

Howard E.