doc/README

   1 == Overview ==
   2
   3 This package contains two files that can be used to alter your
   4 keyboard layout, either in the system console or within X.org (or
   5 both):
   6
   7   * Your physical "Alt" keys act like "Ctrl" keys.
   8   * Your physical "Ctrl" keys act like "Alt" keys.
   9   * Your physical "Caps Lock" key acts like the "Alt" key.
  10
  11 This makes emacs (and any readline-based application) easier to use, I
  12 promise.
  13
  14 The files:
  15
  16 1. src/console.map
  17
  18    This affects the Linux system console and virtual terminals; that
  19    is, the things that you switch between with Ctrl-Alt-FN, and the
  20    thing that you're looking at before you start X.org. The console.map
  21    file is input for the "loadkeys" utility that is part of KBD
  22    project <http://kbd-project.org/> and is provided by sys-apps/kbd
  23    on Gentoo.
  24
  25 2. src/Xmodmap
  26
  27    This affects the X.org system, and your graphical terminals. It
  28    should be fed into the "xmodmap" utility that is part of X.org
  29    and which is provided by x11-apps/xmodmap on Gentoo.
  30
  31 == Installation ==
  32
  33 Either of those files can be loaded manually regardless of where they
  34 live; for example,
  35
  36   $ loadkeys /path/to/console.map
  37   $ xmodmap /path/to/Xmodmap
  38
  39 The "install-console" and "install-xorg" makefile targets will install
  40 both files to $(PREFIX)/share/emacs-keys by default. The value of the
  41 PREFIX variable defaults to /usr/local but can be specified to make;
  42 for example,
  43
  44   $ make PREFIX=/usr install-console
  45
  46 For the Xmodmap file, that's about as good as it gets. To use it, you
  47 will typically add something like the following to your ~/.xinitrc,
  48
  49   emacsmodmap=/usr/share/emacs-keys/Xmodmap
  50   if [ -f $emacsmodmap ]; then
  51     # It doesn't work unless you do it twice, don't ask me why.
  52     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  53     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  54   fi
  55
  56 The console map on the other hand can be loaded by OpenRC, which
  57 starts a "keymaps" service at boot time. The configuration file for
  58 that service is usually located at /etc/conf.d/keymaps, and if you set
  59
  60   extended_keymaps="/usr/share/emacs-keys/console.map"
  61
  62 in there, then OpenRC will load the emacs keymap on top of your
  63 default one when the system boots.