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    You must pass "--enable-Xmodmap" to the ./configure script to
  35    install this file.
  36
  37
  38 == Installation ==
  39
  40 Either of those files can be loaded manually regardless of where they
  41 live; for example,
  42
  43   $ loadkeys /path/to/console.map
  44   $ xmodmap /path/to/Xmodmap
  45
  46 The Makefile will install console.map to $(datadir)/emacs-keys by
  47 default. If you pass "--enable-Xmodmap" to the ./configure script,
  48 then the Makefile will install Xmodmap to the same location.
  49
  50 For the Xmodmap file, that's about as good as it gets. To use it, you
  51 will typically add something like the following to your ~/.xinitrc,
  52
  53   emacsmodmap=/usr/share/emacs-keys/Xmodmap
  54   if [ -f $emacsmodmap ]; then
  55     # It doesn't work unless you do it twice, don't ask me why.
  56     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  57     xmodmap $emacsmodmap
  58   fi
  59
  60 The console map on the other hand can be loaded by OpenRC, which
  61 starts a "keymaps" service at boot time. The configuration file for
  62 that service is usually located at /etc/conf.d/keymaps, and if you
  63 set, for example,
  64
  65   extended_keymaps="/usr/share/emacs-keys/console.map"
  66
  67 in there, then OpenRC will load the emacs keymap on top of your
  68 default one when the system boots.