Keysyms for keyboard multimedia keys lost with xorg 1.7.7

[Michal Varga]

Did anyone else notice complete loss of keyboard symbols for so called
multimedia keys with the recent xorg 1.7.7 upgrade?


$ xev


KeyPress event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x3600001,
    root 0x1ff, subw 0x0, time 26403062, (766,554), root:(770,625),
    state 0x0, keycode 163 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x3600001,
    root 0x1ff, subw 0x0, time 26403207, (766,554), root:(770,625),
    state 0x0, keycode 163 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x3600001,
    root 0x1ff, subw 0x0, time 26405269, (766,554), root:(770,625),
    state 0x0, keycode 142 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x3600001,
    root 0x1ff, subw 0x0, time 26405403, (766,554), root:(770,625),
    state 0x0, keycode 142 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False


Until now, for ease of maintenance, I've been universally using the
"acpi standard" keymap/model everywhere, which instead of those like
"XF86AudioMedia", "XF86AudioLowerVolume", assigned generic symbols like
"0x163", "0x142" to every imaginable multimedia key, no matter what kind
of keyboard has been currently plugged in to a particular machine. Then
users could simply map whatever multimedia key combos they wanted in
their DE's control panels (like Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts), and
everything was perfect, yet without manually building tons of custom
keymaps for every single piece of hw.

This now stopped working - as xev shows, no keysyms are returned for
those keys, so even though X/Gnome can technically see the keys being
pressed, it can't properly read and assign them.

Does anyone have an idea what's causing this new behavior? A new (and
severely limited) keymaps in 1.7.7? Some known/unknown bug/regression?
Or some intentional change somewhere on library level (if so, which
one)?

Any ideas are welcome.

m.


-- 
Michal Varga,
Stonehenge