What will happen when the X server doesn't support XKB(XKEYBOARD)

[Peter Hutterer]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 07:35:21PM +0800, Adam Q wrote:
> There is a X server for win32 which doesn't support XKB extension(I
> know it's unbelievable).
> 
> There is something strange when I try to use the
> gnome-keyboard-properties and system-config-keyboard to change the X
> server's keyboard layout.
> 
> When using gnome-keyboard-properties,the input of keyboard goes crazy
> and can't be used.
> When using system-config-keyboard the CLI just prints something like
> "XKB extension unsupported" and nothing changed including the keyboard
> layout.
> 
> I tested serveral X server from the latest Xorg server in Arch and
> some old Xorg server in RHEL5.6/5.5 also with latest cygwin/X.
> All the servers I tested above can change the keyboard using these 2 GUI.
> 
> I assume the problem is the lack of XKB extension but without XKB
> extension,the client should just send a lot of ChangeKeyboardLayout
> requests (and wireshark shows it really sends) to X server,and the
> layout should change even without the XKB extension and no crazy
> keyboard.
> 
> How can I determine where the problem really is?

possibly with xmodmap to get the keyboard mapping before/after and maybe
xscope or something to snoop the protocol traffic. though a server without
XKB support is not really high on the priority list for server or client
developers and I expect this to be a rather untested scenario.

Cheers,
  Peter