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 console map probably only works on i386 qwerty keyboards, because
  15 that's all I have.
  16
  17 The files:
  18
  19 1. src/console.map
  20
  21    This affects the Linux system console and virtual terminals; that
  22    is, the things that you switch between with Ctrl-Alt-FN, and the
  23    thing that you're looking at before you start X.org. The console.map
  24    file is input for the "loadkeys" utility that is part of KBD
  25    project <http://kbd-project.org/> and is provided by sys-apps/kbd
  26    on Gentoo.
  27
  28 2. src/Xmodmap
  29
  30    This affects the X.org system, and your graphical terminals. It
  31    should be fed into the "xmodmap" utility that is part of X.org
  32    and which is provided by x11-apps/xmodmap on Gentoo.
  33
  34 == Installation ==
  35
  36 Either of those files can be loaded manually regardless of where they
  37 live; for example,
  38
  39   $ loadkeys /path/to/console.map
  40   $ xmodmap /path/to/Xmodmap
  41
  42 The "install-console" and "install-xorg" makefile targets will install
  43 both files to $(PREFIX)/share/emacs-keys by default. The value of the
  44 PREFIX variable defaults to /usr/local but can be specified to make;
  45 for example,
  46
  47   $ make PREFIX=/usr install-console
  48
  49 For the Xmodmap file, that's about as good as it gets. To use it, you
  50 will typically add something like the following to your ~/.xinitrc,
  51
  52   emacsmodmap=/usr/share/emacs-keys/Xmodmap
  53   if [ -f $emacsmodmap ]; then
  54     # It doesn't work unless you do it twice, don't ask me why.
  55     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  56     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  57   fi
  58
  59 The console map on the other hand can be loaded by OpenRC, which
  60 starts a "keymaps" service at boot time. The configuration file for
  61 that service is usually located at /etc/conf.d/keymaps, and if you set
  62
  63   extended_keymaps="/usr/share/emacs-keys/console.map"
  64
  65 in there, then OpenRC will load the emacs keymap on top of your
  66 default one when the system boots.