keyboard

Rob Park rbpark at ualberta.ca
Sun Nov 30 06:59:40 UTC 2003


Mike Lurk wrote:
> I have one of those internet multimedia keyboards with extra buttons at
> the top, I was wondering if there was a way to get them to work in
> Linux. I read somewhere in this list there was some files that needed to
> be installed but I don't have that email anymore. Could anyone please
> help.

I'm something of an expert on this, having just bought a multimedia 
keyboard and figured it all out on my own.

What you want to do is this:

1. Run xev and press all your extra fancy keys, record the keycode for 
each key.

2. Read /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB and find keynames with names that 
are appropriate for the keys. It's all arbitrary, but you'll want 
accurate names to preserve your sanity. For example, use 'XF86LogOff' 
for the "Log Off" key, 'XF86Mail' for the "Mail" key, etc.

3. Create ~/.Xmodmap so that each line reads "keycode=keyname".

4. make sure that 'xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap' is in ~/.Xclients

5. Configure your windowmanager to have actions bound to your new 
keynames. This is the tricky part; with metacity (the gnome default) 
you'll need to use gconf-editor to really dig into metacity's keybindings.





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