Using META and DEL keys in console

[Alejandro Pulver]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 23:11:18 -0600 (CST)
Lars Eighner <eighner at io.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Alejandro Pulver wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have a PS/2 PC-101 keyboard.
> >
> > I would like to use my META (ALT in my keyboard) key instead of ESC
> > in console mode. META works fine in an xterm. I also would like to
> > use DEL and others.
> 
> The console keymaps are in /usr/share/syscons/keymaps.  You can edit
> whichever keymap you are using with a flat ascii editor.
> 
> To get a key to send the familiar ^?, enter del in the keymap.
> Not all applications, however, will do the expected thing with
> this, and you will have to consult the documentation for the
> individual applications to see whether they can be configured to
> do what you expect from a delete key.  For backspace, bs, for
> meta, meta, esc for escape.  Note that you can set the left and
> right Alt keys to different things, and that keypad Del/. key
> can be different from the Delete key.
> 
> You almost certainly do not want to mess with terminfo.
> 
> If you use the the bash shell, you can see
> what a key is currently sending by entering C-v<keystroke>
> at the command prompt.
> 
> > I read something in the manual pages of terminfo(5), gettytab(5),
> > etc.
> >
> > I tried the following options:
> >
> > :km:smm:dc:
> >
> > But I am having these thoubles:
> >
> > 1) My ALT key did not work and the DEL key acts as BACKSPACE (C-h),
> >   but I would like to use it as C-d.
> 
> C-d is eot in the console keymap if you would rather have that
> than the ^? which is del.
> 
> 
> > 2) Some strange thing happens with Emacs in console mode: when I
> > press
> >   DEL, it is interpreted (literally) as C-h, and C-h is used as
> >   BACKSPACE. And C-d acts as DEL.
> 
> Switching to the emacs keymap might help you.
> 
> 
> > 3) Also DEL does not do anything in xterm.
> 
> Make changes to xterm mappings in your .Xdefaults file, such as:
> 
> !! xterm keymappings
> *XTerm*VT100.translations:      #override \n\
>          <Key>KP_Delete: string(0x7f) \n\
> 
> Naturally, you can make these strings whatever you want.
> 
> > Is there a more descriptive documentation of the terminal
> > capabilities listed in terminfo(5)?
> 
> Yes, you can google for many books worth of material, but it is
> not particularly germane to what you want to do if you are running
> a PC with a PC keyboard, and not trying to connect some ancient
> dumb terminal.
> 
> > Is there a standard configuration for PS/2 PC-101 keyboards?
> 
> Unfortunately there are a lot of them.
> 
> 
> > Does xterm use a different configuration from console terminals?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> X applications are meant to run on X, and X is meant to run on a
> variety of machines.  Any relationship between xterm and the
> machine's native terminal is purely coincidental.  (In
> particular, xterm is meant to be out of the box compatible with
> the very old VT100 standard - which never was native to any PC
> operating system.) You can get xterm and the console keyboard to
> behave mostly the same way - and get that way to be what you
> want - by editing .Xdefaults and the syscons keymap you are
> using (probably both).  But that doesn't mean that every
> application will behave as you think it should.
> 
> -- 
> Lars Eighner
> eighner at io.com
> http://www.io.com/~eighner/index.html
> 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266
> 
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Thank you for your reply.

Where is the (complete) list of scancodes and which keys produce them?

If there is not, as I think, how can I know what scancode is produced by
each key in my keyboard (a program, maybe)?

Thanks and Best Regards,
Ale