[Pkg-kbd-devel] Re: Ubuntu keyboard/installer plans

[Denis Barbier]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 01:26:47PM +0300, Anton Zinoviev wrote:
[...]
> Also, many of the non-pc keyboards are not working.  I had these fixed
> around the first version of console-setup and the X upstream accepted
> the changes but unfortunately now the keyboards are again broken. :-)
> Moreover I am not sure what is the proper fix of the problem.

Anton, I am currently working on Mac layouts, they will be fixed
in xkb-data 0.8.13.  You can have a look at 0.8.12-exp3 from
experimental if you want, it is very similar to 0.8.13.

> In the directory /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/macintosh_vndr/ one can
> find some keyboard layouts that are Macintosh specific.  Do you know
> whether people are using these?  The only important difference between
> vendor-specific layouts and the main layouts are the symbols on the
> third and fourth levels (the symbols activated by AltGr).

No, Macintosh layouts are almost unusable, so people had their own
XKB files, but this will change very soon ;)

> If these layouts are not used I can make the necessary changes in
> /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base and persuade the X upstream to apply
> them.
> 
> Otherwise we need some mapping from the standard layouts to the
> vendor-specific layouts when such vendor-specific layout exists (far
> not all layouts have vendor-specific alternatives).  Ofcourse this is
> much more difficult task to achieve.
> 
> How is this problem solved in the Ubuntu installer and the other
> distributions?  How the keyboard is configured for X when non-pc
> keyboard is used?  If the installers use always only the standard
> layouts, this could be strong evidence that people do not use the
> vendor-specific layouts.

At least for French Macintosh XKB layout, it is a FAQ that the current
one is unusable, so all French users copy it from some internet site.
But this does not mean that they are happy with the current situation.

I did not understand your points above, what is the problem with
macintosh_vndr/* layouts?

Denis