X server and xinit works excellent....almost.

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com> wrote:

> > My assumption still is: Not _every_ keyboard manufacturer does
> > code the layout into the USB identification. If you tell me I'm
> > wrong with this assumption, I'll be happy. :-)
>
> Folks are supposed to use a different product ID for different
> devices, so you can uniquely identify them.
>
> I can't promise that every vendor handles this perfectly, any
> more than folks always ensured that PCI ids uniquely identified
> a specific hardware version, but one should blame the vendor for
> being brain-damaged in such cases; it isn't a fault of the USB
> standard....

If someone manufactures a single type of keyboard -- using only one
type of ASIC, one PCB/keyswitch layout, one kind of housing, etc. --
I'd say it is very much open to interpretation whether snapping on a
different collection of keycaps makes it into a different "product".
Even if the manufacturer tried to cover for the possibility, e.g. by
providing a jumper on the PCB which is supposed to be set according
to the installed set of keycaps, there will still be cases where an
end user replaces or rearranges the keycaps to change the layout and
doesn't change the jumper setting.