French-Canadian Keyboard & keyboard switching

Fri May 1 13:25:02 UTC 2009

On Fri, 01 May 2009 09:11:02 -0400 PJ wrote:
> Boris Samorodov wrote:
> > On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:04:34 -0400 PJ wrote:
> >   
> >> Tijl Coosemans wrote:
> >>     
> >>> On Wednesday 29 April 2009 15:20:34 PJ wrote:
> >>>       
> >>>> Cool. Then I can ask some questions regarding all of this.
> >>>>
> >>>> rc.conf: (snipped to show the relevant entries)
> >>>> font8x16="iso15-8x16"
> >>>> font8x14="iso15-8x14"
> >>>> font8x8="iso15-8x8"
> >>>> allscreens_flags="VGA_80x60 cyan"
> >>>> rpcbind_enable="YES"
> >>>> mountd_flags="-r"
> >>>> nfs_client_enable="YES"
> >>>> nfs_client_flags="-n 4"
> >>>> samba_enable="YES"
> >>>> cupsd_enable="YES"
> >>>> apache22_enable="YES"
> >>>> postgresql_enable="YES"
> >>>> mysql_enable="YES"
> >>>> webmin_enable="YES"
> >>>> #keymap=fr_CA.iso.acc.kbd
> >>>>
> >>>> Question:
> >>>> 1. the font entries? The /usr/share/syscons/fonts/ entry has suffixes
> >>>> of .fnt - ???
> >>>>         
> >>> Your font and keymap settings are ok. The extensions can be omitted.
> >>> See the EXAMPLES sections in vidcontrol(1) and kbdcontrol(1).
> >>>
> >>>       
> >>>> 2. the keymap is commented out because, although it gives me the
> >>>> fr_CA keyboard, it also uses French messages which are a bit tortured
> >>>> (French courtly affectations in the language are quaint but also make
> >>>> for long and convoluted terminology - notice that a text translated
> >>>> to French is always longer). K.I.S.S.
> >>>>         
> >>> Keyboard settings shouldn't affect message localisation. Do you set
> >>> the environment variable LANG in ~/.login_conf or in a shell startup
> >>> script (.profile or .cshrc or other depending on the shell)? If so,
> >>> set it to en_CA.ISO8859-15 or something. From q5 below I think you've
> >>> currently set it to fr_CA.utf-8.
> >>>       
> >
> > No answer. Which locale do you use?
> >   
> default us
> >   
> >>>> xorg.conf: (snip for relevant)
> >>>> Section "ServerLayout"
> >>>> Identifier "X.org Configured"
> >>>> Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
> >>>> InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
> >>>> InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
> >>>> Option "AllowEmptyInput" "off"
> >>>>         
> >
> > Seems that you use new X stuff. X11@ and gnome@ maillist archieves may
> > give you some additional information.
> >
> >   
> >>>> EndSection
> >>>>
> >>>> Section "Files"
> >>>> ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
> >>>>         
> >
> > Unless I add cyrillic fonts, I'm not able to see cyrillic
> > letters at xterm for my utf-8 locale.
> >
> >   
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
> >>>> FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
> >>>> EndSection
> >>>>
> >>>> Section "Module"
> >>>> Load "extmod"
> >>>> Load "record"
> >>>> Load "dbe"
> >>>> Load "glx"
> >>>> Load "GLcore"
> >>>> Load "xtrap"
> >>>> Load "dri"
> >>>> Load "freetype"
> >>>> EndSection
> >>>>
> >>>> Section "InputDevice"
> >>>> Identifier "Keyboard0"
> >>>> Driver "kbd"
> >>>> Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
> >>>>         
> >>> This might have to be pc105, but it probably doesn't matter.
> >>>
> >>>       
> >>>> Option "XkbLayout" "us,ca"
> >>>>         
> >>> Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#QWERTY

[2]

> >>> If you have Canadian Multilingual Standard, this option needs to be set
> >>> to "ca(multi)". If you have Canadian French, set it to "ca" or
> >>> "ca(fr)".
> >>>       
> >> This does not set it to the Canadian French; nor can I find anything
> >> that does... only my lame setup works using the French azerty (which is
> >> rather a pain because it involves complicated finger moves to get the
> >> accented characters - I'm familiar with it and can use it; it's just a pita.
> >>     
> >
> > Phil, you didn't say which keyboard do you use and which options you
> > have tried.
> >
> > Anyway, you may look at /usr/local/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst  [1]
> > for options that can be used at xorg.conf for keyboards.
> >
> > And you may be interested in looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
> > There are many useful diagnistics at this file.
> >
> >>>> Option "XkbOptions" "grp:toggle"
> >>>>         
> >>> If you don't need layout switching just delete this.
> >>>       
> >> I guess I wasn't clear. Toggling was meant to mean switching back and
> >> forth; switching - just once. I would like to use switching but it seems
> >> to only work one way. Can't switch back. rtAlt switches from us to the
> >> ca (which oddly seems to mean French, but nothing to do with Canadian or
> >> French Canadian. Only fluxbox brings it back and then rtAlt no longer
> >> works. Weird.
> >> Any idea where the documentation is for this?
> >> The man page is rather foggy and has no mention of XkbOptions or
> >> XkbLayout or anything about "grp:toggle"
> >>     
> >
> > Looking at [1] should help.
> >
> >
> > HTH & WBR
> >   
> Hi, Boris,
> Thanks much for your input. I looked at all the possibilities, like the
> profile, login.conf files, logs, google and have finally configured all
> as I like. Everything works fine...
> EXCEPT - it is impossible to install a French-Canadian keyboard/keymap
> (without creating one - and I'm not about to get into that) on xorg
> (with fluxbox as wm)
> As I just responded to Tijl Goosemans, the true French Canadian keyboard
> produces the most common accented characters with one keystroke; the
> French or old Fr-Canadian uses 2 keystrokes. I can assure you because I

Does that mead that your keyboard is not shown at wiki [2]?

> am typing on that keyboard right now. I switch between us & fr_ca with
> ShiftAlt. the key to the right of the p/P key is used to create the
> circumfex (lowercase) in conjunction with a vowel or umlaut (uppercase).

Did you look at [1]? There are some tree variants for canadian
multilingual keyboards: multix, multi, multi-2gr. May be this
may help you.

> In Xorg, the toggle/switching is set with Option "XkbOptions"
> "grp:alt_shift_toggle" or just alt or shift, I think. Also you can list
> several languages, like "us,ru,es,fr" and switch from one to the next
> (haven't tried, but I think it works); and "CoreKeyboard" must have a
> boolean option set - either yes or no - "yes" works for me. I suppose
> you could enter true/false, but I haven't tried. No need.

BTW, may be another mail list (x11@) may give you some more
experienced eyes to help you.

WBR
-- 
Boris Samorodov (bsam)
Research Engineer, http://www.ipt.ru Telephone & Internet SP
FreeBSD Committer, http://www.FreeBSD.org The Power To Serve