xserv 4.3.0-29 Alt Gr Problem is gone

[Hans Dekker]

Hello Alexander,

Sometime ago I asked you about the solution of AltGr keyboards. For 
HP-UX I found the solution.

I am writing a mail to the user group and would like to mention your 
name (if you like) for helping to find the solution.

The text is below.

Tell me if that's OK for you or not.

Regards, Hans.

Hi all,

I posted some questions sometime ago on the problem of using Cygwin in
conjunction with HP-UX 11 CDE and other X-apps. Although xterm and 
hpterm were working well after editing with xmodmap, dtterm and our Sas 
application -which has an X/Motif/X11R6 interface- weren't.

After researching and finding mails from various user groups, I found
that setting the environment variable XKB_DISABLE=1 is the solution on a
HP-UX 11 platform. Setting this parameter disables Motif XKB 
translations and puts Motif apps back to good old X-handling of keyboards.

My suggestion to the editors of the Cygwin manuals would be to put this
at least in the Cygwin documentation, since I saw others in your mailing 
lists having this problem.

To get dtterm or your X/Motif application working well with the AtlGr
key on HP-UX 11 use:

start X environment
# XKB_DISABLE=1 dtterm
or
# XKB_DISABLE=1 <your app>

Next, you will need to reassign the AltGr key (thanks to A. Gottwalt and
Philippe Eclair):

xmodmap -e "clear mod5"
xmodmap -e "clear mod3"
xmodmap -e "keycode 113 = Mode_switch Multi_key"
xmodmap -e "add mod3 = Mode_switch"

Then you can modify your keyboard further with xmodmap as desired.

For convenience I added a xmodmap.es.hpux file with the definitions for 
a Spanish keyboard. It is a compilation of the definitions found in the 
file /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/es.

You can use xmodmap both on a terminal on your X-server as in the remote 
application that is using your X-server.

Beware to use xmodmap with other X-servers like the ones of Linux or 
XWin32, since those will have other keycodes mapped to the keyboard!

Following the documentation you can prevent the above xmodmap commands, 
changing one of the keyboard configurations included with Cygwin as you 
like using the XF86Config file.
In my case I still needed to xmodmap keys with to use their 'third' or 
AltGr definition, although others said this wouldn't be necessary and 
the keyboard mapping will be brought over OK the the X-server.

I included the file /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/es for a Spanish keyboard 
and added the option "hpux" which is a copy of the "nodeadkeys" options. 
Activate it in your XF86Config using:

       Option "XkbLayout"   "es"
       Option "XkbVariant"  "hpux"

       Option "LeftAlt"     "Meta"
       Option "RightAlt"    "ModeShift"
or use this command when you don't have a XF86Config file:

# setxkbmap -layout es -variant hpux


Using Cygwin with HP-UX CDE:

When you are using CDE on HP-UX you can use the following procedure,
which I found on the Internet. Check the solution at 
http://aa11.cjb.net/hpux_admin/2000/12/0212.html that came from the 
community:

Create the file /etc/dt/config/Xsession.d/0050.disable_xkb with the
following content:

#!/usr/bin/ksh
#####################################################################
### File: 0050.disable_xkb
###
### Purpose: disable the XKEYBOARD extension in all R6
### client software.
#####################################################################
export XKB_DISABLE=1

and give it the 755 protection.

Then put in the .dtprofile of a user the command to change his/her
keyboard layout:

xmodmap /etc/xmodmap.es.hpux

which contains a copy of the enclosed keyboard mapping.


Alexander Gottwald escribió:
> Alexander Gottwald wrote:
> 
> 
>>Hans Dekker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Still, what's the solution to defining your keyboard correctly *before*
>>>you start Xwin?.
>>>
>>>I guess it must be simple, but probably I oversee some configuration
>>>file or anything similar.
>>
>>The config file.
>>http://xfree86.cygwin.com/docs/faq/cygwin-xfree-faq.html#q-non-U.S.-keyboard-layout
> 
> 
> After I've read your mail again I noticed you're connecting to CDE. CDE uses
> an old version of X11 and has problems with the keysymbol for the AltGr key.
> 
> Most likely CDE sets the keyboard layout with an extra modmap which does not
> work with the 4.3 Release. But so far no one has examined this further or
> reported the results.
> 
> bye
>     ago