Using Alt+x on a vt terminal

Piotr M. pfm at wp.eu
Mon Apr 19 20:28:27 UTC 2021


Hello all,

I'm trying to use Emacs on a vt terminal, but left Alt+x isn't handled properly (I'm using kern.vty=vt and LANG=pl_PL.UTF-8).  Even with us.emacs.kbd keymap, I can't use left Alt+x as M-x -- I have to use Esc followed by x, which of course isn't very convenient.

When I press left Alt+x, Emacs complains that M-ź is unbound.  But that means that several things happen: Alt+x is processed, turned into 'ź' (right Alt+x yields this character), and then the driver still seems to 'think' it needs to make that an Alt+something.  Similar thing happens in tcsh: when I type Ctrl+v followed by left Alt+x, I get "^[ź", so Alt seems to be applied twice.

Is there any chance I could set up my system to properly handle left Alt+x on a vt terminal?  Looking at the keymaps, I feel the answer is 'no' because keymaps don't specify which Alt is used as modifier key for a particular scan code.  But maybe I am missing something?

Any hint or help will be highly appreciated.

Best regards,
Piotr M.


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