keyboard action under X

[Troy Korjuslommi]

Edit ${HOME}/XTerm and add the following lines:
*vt100.altIsNotMeta: true
*vt100.altSendsEscape: true

Then start a new xterm.

Troy


On Thu, 2013-09-26 at 17:31 -0400, Harry Putnam wrote:
> First let me say, that I've posted about this problem on both the
> emacs.help:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/93417
> 
> and debian list:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.user/462017
> 
> but so far, although there was helpful input, I haven't yet figured
> out what is wrong here.
> 
> My setup:
> Keyboard is 104 key english... A cheapo Logitech k120 new.
> Older PC (intel P4)
> Running Debian (testing)
> LXDE desktop in xorg
> Keyboard Newish 104 key cheapo Logiteck K120
> 
> Briefly put: On my keyboard I see, what is to me, unusual behavior
> when I press what is labeled as ALT on the left or right of space bar,
> followed by just about any other letter while in an xterm.  In my case
> it is the real "Thomas Dickey" xterm, not one of the pretenders.
> 
> Example is Alt+x: `ø'
>            Alt+=: `½'
> 
> so I'm getting what one might expect from an alt_gr key.
> 
> It means that all my custom ~/.inputrc function or insertions etc are
> useless since I've used `ALT + somekey' for most... I might be able to
> rewrite them I guess, but it also means that use of emacs -nw in an
> xterm is a pain in the butt too.
> 
> So what can be causing this?
> 
> On debian (maybe other distos) we have /etc/default/keyboard, that is
> supposed to control this kind of stuff.
> 
> I've tried a few different settings there:
> 
> with Alt not set to anything special like alt_gr or compse; And with
> right Alt set to alt_gr.
> 
> I've seen absolutely no difference, no matter which I set.
> 
> I left it on the last one mentioned above so the settings currently in
> /etc/default/keyboard look like:
> 
> ,----
> |  grep '^[^#]' /etc/default/keyboard
> | 
> |  XKBMODEL="pc104"
> |  XKBLAYOUT="us"
> |  XKBVARIANT=""
> |  XKBOPTIONS="lv3:ralt_alt,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
> |  BACKSPACE="guess"
> `----
> 
> I'm not sure what all might help to debug this but a few more pieces
> of info are included below:
> 
> xev shows this gpt right and left alt respectively:
> 
> ,----
> | 
> | Right ALT
> | 
> |   KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
> |     root 0x131, subw 0x2400002, time 18339999, (40,43), root:(76,472),
> |     state 0x0, keycode 108 (keysym 0xffea, Alt_R), same_screen YES,
> |     XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
> |     XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
> |     XFilterEvent returns: False
> | 
> | Left ALT
> | 
> | KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
> |     root 0x131, subw 0x2400002, time 18340703, (40,43), root:(76,472),
> |     state 0x0, keycode 64 (keysym 0xffe9, Alt_L), same_screen YES,
> |     XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
> |     XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
> |     XFilterEvent returns: False
> `----
> 
>  I have tried this in .Xresources:
> ,----
> |  XTerm*metaSendsEscape:true
> `----
> 
> Commands such as these:
>  (wrapped for mail)
> 
> ,----
> |  setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout us -option compose:rctrl -option
> |  terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp
> | 
> |  setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout us -variant altgr-intl -option
> |  compose:rctrl -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp
> `----
> 
> None of this appears to have any effect whatever.
> 
> How can I debug this?
> 
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