My old iBook is still being used! I installed Ubuntu on it a while ago. Today I thought that it was kind-of sluggish and I decided to switch from the default window manager and desktop environment to something leaner. I remember a long time ago I had been using SlackWare and had switched from KDE to Xfce. Time to try it again!
Right now I sort-of miss the Exposé functionality. I think I just need to find a different solution or I might go back to Gnome because of the resources this will need.
My menu-bar background is black. Yuck, that’s ugly. Must find a better theme. I think I’m running into two things conflicting, here. By using Xfce 4 Settings Manager → Appearance I was able to switch from Albatross to Clearlooks, I fixed the menu-bar. Previously, I had only used the Window Manager setting to switch from Default style to Agua style. Solved, I think.
I find that my dead keys are only working partially. The obvious stuff like the circumflex (^ + e = ê) and the umlaut (¨ + o = ö) work, but I’ve grown used to Alt+2 resulting in “ and Alt+Shift+2 resulting in ” – something about my keymap is broken! It turns out that I want my Option key to be used as Alt, with Emacs treating Alt as Meta. The Alt key, however, should be used as whatever it’s called to access the extra stuff on a key (again, I’ll have to look up the names). Gah! Keyboard Layouts Settings is not helping.
Half the problem is solved by the following – now the Option key acts as alt/meta.
! Option key is alt/meta remove mod4 = Super_L add mod1 = Super_L
Using “keycode 64 = Mode_switch” doesn’t change the Alt key to give me access to the third and fourth keysym. What’s wrong? Time to reread my old blog posts... 2009-11-30 Keyboard Remapping. Truly, I feel like I’m giving advice to my future self. Ah, there it is!
! Alt key switches levels remove mod1 = Alt_L keycode 64 = ISO_Level3_Shift
And it works! Now to make this permanent... save the lines in a file called ~*.Xmodmap and they’ll get run when you log in. Problem solved!*
(Also remember the changes I made to my system: 2009-12-19 Waiting For Processes…)
2009-12-19 Waiting For Processes
keycode 133 = Meta_L keycode 64 = ISO_Level3_Shift remove mod1 = ISO_Level3_Shift keycode 65 = space space
I ended up typing a lot of Shift+Space = non-breaking space.
#Ubuntu #Xfce #iBook
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Gah, I hate this. The Alt key correctly allows me to type []|{}“”‘’ and many other important characters – but the Option key still acts as Super modifier for Emacs. Damn. I want Meta!
The following gives me Meta on the option key in Emacs, but Alt is also Meta instead of level shifting! And in the terminal, the Alt key appears to be always on: Hitting E or T gets me the Edit or Terminal menu!
! Option key is alt/meta clear mod1 clear mod2 clear mod3 clear mod4 clear mod5 keycode 133 = Meta_L add mod1 = Meta_L ! Alt key switches levels keycode 64 = ISO_Level3_Shift
Every now and then I totally understand why I preferred the proprietary Apple + Mac OS solution. I must have wasted six hours on this topic alreay. Think about it. The amount of money I could have earned in six hours. What I could have bought with that.
All wasted in order to get the fucking keyboard to do what I fucking want. A useless waste of time. And it still doesn’t work. This makes me very, very angry.
And when I test it with xev, everything seems to work! XLookupString returns the correct strings.
What the hell is going on?
When I just use the following, neither Alt nor Option key have an effect.
! Option key is alt/meta clear mod1 clear mod2 clear mod3 clear mod4 clear mod5 keycode 133 = Meta_L
When I then add the following line, both Alt key and Option key start acting as Meta in Emacs!
add mod1 = Meta_L
Apparently the Alt_L binding for the Alt key is enough for Emacs to recognize it, even though it’s not bound to mod1.
– Alex Schroeder 2010-04-12 08:25 UTC