Dvorak keymap in single user mode
Robert Downes
nullentropy at lineone.net
Thu Jan 1 20:08:10 PST 2004
Robert Downes wrote:
> I use the US Dvorak keyboard layout, and I find it very difficult to
> type in single user mode (when installing world, for example), because
> single user mode uses the QWERTY keyboard layout, and does not seem to
> pay any attention to kbdmap (I think that's the command name - the one
> with the interactive keymap chooser).
>
> Someone suggested that it's possible to compile the Dvorak layout into
> my kernel, but how is this done, and is there an easier way of
> changing keyboard layout in single user mode?
>
Okay, made some progress here.
Finally noticed that kbdmap says, quite clearly,
*BUGS* <http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=kbdmap&sektion=1&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.1-RELEASE+and+Ports#end>
The *kbdmap* and *vidfont* utilities work only on a (virtual) console and not
with X11.
The single user mode is not a virtual console, as virtual consoles are
not permitted to run during single user mode.
However, the command-line (non-interactive) equivalent is kbdcontrol,
and it seems to suffer no such limitation.
So, once in single user mode, type
mount -a
to make sure that /usr is mounted (needed because it contains the
keymaps), and then type
df
to check that the filesystems are mounted. (Actually, you may not need
all of them.)
If /usr is now showing up, type
kbdcontrol -l us.dvorak
and you will be reunited with the (cough... superior... cough) Dvorak
keyboard layout.
This can be done with any of the available layout files in
/usr/share/syscons/keymaps
However, never happy with a simple option, I wonder if there's an easy
(read lazy) option... is it possible to automate this process, so that
this command is run by default? (Or is that inadvisable because it
requires /usr to be available, and /usr should not necessarily be
available in single user mode everytime?)
--
Bob
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