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474
l33t
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 714
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 Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2002 12:51 pm Post subject: Help!!! Console keymap madness ... |
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This one really has me stumped. I've set my keymap to "UK" in /etc/rc.conf as usual on a new installation. To show you how bizarre my problem is, check this out.
1) Boot up fresh. At the username login prompt, I press Shift + 3 (which should be a £ sign on a UK keyboard). Instead, I get a "u" char with an umlaut!
2) I switch over to the second virtual console. At that prompt I try pressing Shift + 3 again. I start typing some regular characters. I press Backspace and end up with a short series of "e" chars with umlauts, or "a" chars with acute accents.
3) Still in vc/2 I attempt an invalid username/password pair. Login fails. Now I try Shift +3, Backspace (and others) and everything is fine!
4) Cool, so I go back to vc/1 but Shift + 3 still gives me the bloody "u" with an umlaut still and a few other select characters are wrong.
5) I login properly, load X, and then xterm. I press Shift + 3 and now I get a "#" like a US keboard setting.  Arrrrgggh!
I beseech someone to help explain this madness, please ... |
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rac
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 May 2002
Posts: 6553
Location: Japanifornia
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2002 6:18 pm Post subject: Re: Help!!! Console keymap madness ... |
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| kerframil wrote: | | 5) I login properly, load X, and then xterm. I press Shift + 3 and now I get a "#" like a US keboard setting. Arrrrgggh! |
I can't help with the console stuff, but I remember looking up something once for somebody trying to get a UK keyboard working in X, and I found that there was no "uk" symbols, but there was a "gb", and I wondered if that might help you. X keyboard layout is totally independent of the rc.conf settings - everything happens in XF86Config.
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For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder |
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474
l33t
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 714
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| Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2002 6:42 pm Post subject: One down at least |
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Great, that's X sorted out at least - just a matter of adding a few XKB related lines. Got too used to xf86config sorting that out for me 
The other problems still persist, and I see nothing to go on - which makes life in console land most unpleasant. Have another (similar) PC sitting next to it with a virtually identical config, and it works fine. Is there anything I could try re-emerging? |
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AJM
Apprentice
Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 189
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2002 11:32 am Post subject: |
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In your first post, I notice you say you set your keymap to "UK". My Gentoo machines have "KEYMAP=uk" in /etc/rc.conf. I don't actually know if the uppercase would matter at all, but it might be worth a try? Maybe you've got a Ukranian keymap or something 
You don't have any "CONSOLETRANSLATION" set by accident do you? It's slightly further down in rc.conf.
It IS very strange that the failed login attempt fixes things there though, so maybe all the above is completely off the track... |
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474
l33t
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 714
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2002 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| AJM wrote: | | In your first post, I notice you say you set your keymap to "UK". My Gentoo machines have "KEYMAP=uk" in /etc/rc.conf. I don't actually know if the uppercase would matter at all, but it might be worth a try? Maybe you've got a Ukranian keymap or something |
Yeah, that was a mistake. It is set to "uk" as you say. | Quote: | | You don't have any "CONSOLETRANSLATION" set by accident do you? It's slightly further down in rc.conf. |
No, I don't. Tried using it as well. | Quote: |
It IS very strange that the failed login attempt fixes things there though, so maybe all the above is completely off the track... |
It sure is (strange). I've examined the /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/uk.map.gz (which appears to be utterly correct), gunzipped it, tried changing it and all sorts. I've tried using the loadkeys command myself and have examined the keymaps boot script (anyone noticed that the /etc/init.d/keymaps script uses a command line option that isn't documented in the man page?). Other keymaps seem to be fine, such as the "us" one (I know where the keys should be on a US keyboard).
Furthermore, I've discovered that this is actually hapenning on all of my three Gentoo machines! Just the pound sign, and Backspace sometimes generating the sporadic chars mentioned before (with inconsistent behaviour between virtual consoles).
I have support for UTF-8,ISO-8859-1,ISO-8859-15 and the CP850 compiled into my kernel but that should only affect character representation on mounted filesystems right? One machine uses gentoo-sources-r9 kernel, and the other two use the experimental gentoo-sources-r10 (makes no difference). One of them is over a month out of date in terms of installed ebuilds, while the other two are bang up to date. Reasonable compiler optimisations have been used (-march,-O3,-pipe).
I used "-nls" as one of my USE flags, because someone once stated that it causes nothing but bloat if you don't need multi-regional functionality. Could this be it? Does anyone know the *real* implications of disabling this flag?
I mean, what is really responsible for the mechanics behind this? Is it devfs/kernel/bash or what?
Aside from that, I have devfs set to mount at boot in the kernel and just read in Daniel Robbin's tutorial over at IBM developerWorks that this is a bad idea. I'm going to post this one as a new question anyway, but I wonder if that could have any effect.
Could any UK resident not having these problems consider sending me their kernel .config file? I would like to compile a kernel based on somebody else's choices, to eliminate my config as a possible cause of my woes.
I cannot stand this. I was planning to deploy Gentoo on my Compaq Proliant ML350 server very soon, but I cannot trust a system that does not understand what I mean when I type on a keyboard! If I cannot solve this, I'm going to have to use FreeBSD/OpenBSD (or maybe Debian) for the server, but I want Gentoo. |
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AJM
Apprentice
Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 189
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2002 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Furthermore, I've discovered that this is actually hapenning on all of my three Gentoo machines! Just the pound sign, and Backspace sometimes generating the sporadic chars mentioned before (with inconsistent behaviour between virtual consoles). |
Very strange. I've never had any bother at all with keymaps under Gentoo. AARGH! I spoke too soon  I've just discovered that I have exactly the same problem on this machine! I'll check at work tomorrow to see if my other Gentoo machine is the same...
| Quote: | | I used "-nls" as one of my USE flags, because someone once stated that it causes nothing but bloat if you don't need multi-regional functionality. Could this be it? Does anyone know the *real* implications of disabling this flag? |
I also have -nls set - I've ALWAYS used --disable-nls when compiling stuff, with no ill effects whatsoever in the past (on different distros). It saves an awful lot of rubbish getting installed. (OK, it's not rubbish if you happen to need the foreign languages, but most people in this country have enough bother with English, never mind anything else
| Quote: | | Aside from that, I have devfs set to mount at boot in the kernel and just read in Daniel Robbin's tutorial over at IBM developerWorks that this is a bad idea. I'm going to post this one as a new question anyway, but I wonder if that could have any effect. |
Dunno - I also have devfs set to mount at boot. Is this not the normal way of doing things? I've always steered clear of devfs in the past, so don't have any experience there.
| Quote: | | Could any UK resident not having these problems consider sending me their kernel .config file? I would like to compile a kernel based on somebody else's choices, to eliminate my config as a possible cause of my woes. |
Well, I emailed you mine before I found out I had the same problem - sorry!
| Quote: |
I cannot stand this. I was planning to deploy Gentoo on my Compaq Proliant ML350 server very soon, but I cannot trust a system that does not understand what I mean when I type on a keyboard! If I cannot solve this, I'm going to have to use FreeBSD/OpenBSD (or maybe Debian) for the server, but I want Gentoo. |
Well, Debian is fine for a server, but I've really taken to Gentoo in the short while I've been using it and much prefer it. I do have a couple of Debian boxes still which rarely give trouble - but the whole thing's just not as "clean" as Gentoo somehow, even if it is all in my head
AJ |
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474
l33t
Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 714
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| Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:53 pm Post subject: Filed |
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Thanks, AJM. I thought I was going crazy. Filed as a bug now at:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10437
I've detailed more clearly what the problem is and you might like to add a comment to it to say you're having the same (or a similar) problem. |
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Cretin
Retired Dev
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 23
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2002 9:18 am Post subject: |
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If you read the buzilla page I posted a confiuration magic to get the £ key working once you login. Just set the CONSOLETRANSLATION var to the default.
You might have your kernel compiled without some nls details, I have all the options compiled in as modules. Do a dmesg to see what modules it is looking for and failing to load.
You still cannot use the char as a username/password but I don't think this is a major issue.
Anyone here had anymore luck/ ideas |
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