special caracters on german keyboard

[Alexander Holst]

Hi Robert,

Am Dienstag, 30.09.03, um 16:46 Uhr (Europe/Berlin) schrieb 
yellowdog-general-request@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com:

> Message: 6
> To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
> Subject: Re: special caracters on german keyboard
> From: Robert Persson <ireneandrobert@telus.net>
> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:43:58 -0700
> Reply-To: yellowdog-general@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>
>> I have YDL on serveral machines her at school, all with german
>> keyboards. In Linux there is a difference between the left and the  
>> right
>> "Alt" key! The left key is simply "Alt" but the right one is  "AltGr",
>> which will give you the desired characters.
>
> Should this work with a US keyboard as well to get all those weird
> characters that Americans don't use?  My right alt/option key on my adb
> keyboard behaves just like the left-hand one.

Try the "Apple" aka. "Command" key. It seems that some ADB keyboards do 
react differently on a Linux box. I have two Apple Design keyboards 
(the ones that came with the Performas) and one will make a difference 
between left and right Alt, the other doesn't. Both work fine under any 
Mac OS (9 or X) though (as Mac OS doesn't differntiate between the two 
keys, maybe some models did't send different keycodes for the two keys 
in question). Funny enough, some of my (various) ADB keyboards will 
send the proper keycode for the "AltGr" key when pressing the "Command" 
key, but not consitantly - so maybe holding down the "Command" key will 
work on your keyboard.

I also found out that when you disconnect any ADB keyboard from the 
Linux box, not only the mouse speed changes, but no more difference 
between left and right "Alt" key (no matter which model) - I use a 
simple Monitor/Keyboard switch to have one Monitor and Keyboard for my 
servers here, so it happens the first time when I switch to another box 
after booting the box). I haven't found a way to reset/rescan the ADB 
bus under Linux as of yet, therefore I used the trick to remap the 
right "Alt" key to the "Command" key, which will always work, no matter 
how often you disconnect your keyboard or reboot the box. You have to 
do it for the console and X in seperate files as described in the 
little HowTo I refered to in my last mail.

I assume, once you "fixed" the "AltGr" key issue, you should be able to 
get some extra characters by pressing "AltGr" and some of the 
alphanumeric characters - I have no clue what the additional characters 
will be though :)

Greetings,
Alex


Alexander Holst
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences
<holst@fh-pforzheim.de>
ph: +49 [0]7231 28-6837
fx: +49 [0]7231 28-6040