pk wrote:

> Aragorn wrote:
>
>> I seem to have run into another little mystery here for which neither the
>> documentation nor Google provide any useful help...
>>
>> In the file */etc/conf.d/keymaps,* there is a variable
>> /EXTENDED_KEYMAPS./ By default it is set to "", but an alternative value
>> underneath which is commented out lists "backspace keypad euro" as
>> example values.
>>
>> Can anyone tell me what those values mean, or at least what "backspace"
>> and "keypad" mean there? (I suppose I know what "euro" means.)
>
> [...]
> So, as an example, using this configuration:
>
> KEYMAP="be-latin1"
> EXTENDED_KEYMAPS="euro backspace keypad"
>
> will result in the following command being executed by the initscript:
>
> /bin/loadkeys -q be-latin1 euro backspace keypad
>
> which will load the following keymap files:
>
> /usr/share/keymaps/i386/azerty/be-latin1.map.gz
> /usr/share/keymaps/i386/include/euro.map.gz
> /usr/share/keymaps/i386/include/backspace.map.gz
> /usr/share/keymaps/i386/include/keypad.map.gz
>
> (You can do
>
> ls /usr/share/keymaps/i386/{azerty,dvorak,fgGIod,include,qwerty,qwertz}
>
> and see for yourself what keymaps are available)
>
> The keymaps located in include/ are not full keymaps; they just define
> some extra keys, like, for instance, the euro key or the backspace key,
> which complement the main keymap. And yes, they are plain text files, so
> you can see what they do (if not already apparent by their name). For
> example, this is /usr/share/keymaps/i386/include/euro.map.gz:
>
> $ zcat /usr/share/keymaps/i386/include/euro.map.gz
> # Euro and cent
> # [Say: "loadkeys euro" to get Euro and cent with Alt on the positions
> # where many keyboards have E and C.
> # To get it displayed, use a latin0 (i.e., latin9) font.]
> alt keycode 18 = currency
> alt keycode 46 = cent

I suppose that UTF-8 will cover those too?

> So, using EXTRA_KEYMAPS="euro" will give you the "€" and "¢" symbols in
> console, provided you use a font that can render them.
>
> In my experience, using "backspace" in EXTRA_KEYMAPS is useless, since
> most keymaps already define that key themselves.

This was what confused me, as most keyboards for what is generally
considered "the PC architecture" nowadays are of the "extended" type, and
I've never seen a keyboard, extended or otherwise, that didn't have a
backspace key.

> Hope this helps.

Absolutely! My gratitude to you, Sir! ;-)

--
Aragorn
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)