Emacs-snapshot Right Alt key

[Stephen Ryan]

On 12/22/06, Scot Johnson <scotjohnson at mac.com> wrote:
> Stephen Ryan <taketwoaspirin at gmail.com> writes:
> > I've also noticed this in Firefox, where right-alt + left-arrow
> > doesn't go back.  I've not yet bothered to find a fix for that, but
> > you might check to see if it's the same problem that I have, where the
> > right Alt key is showing up as a "ISO Level 3 Shift" key, rather than
> > "Alt_R".  From a terminal, run "xev", then press and release the right
> > alt key once.
> >
> > I get the following output from that, which shows that the key name is
> > "ISO_Level3_Shift":
>
> Running xev, it looks like I get the same thing:
>
> KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x1c00001,
>     root 0x4d, subw 0x0, time 2889541911, (696,268), root:(703,343),
>     state 0x0, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES,
>     XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>     XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>     XFilterEvent returns: False
>
> KeyRelease event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x1c00001,
>     root 0x4d, subw 0x0, time 2889541998, (696,268), root:(703,343),
>     state 0x80, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES,
>     XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>     XFilterEvent returns: False
>
> > I have two similar systems running edgy, one a fresh install and the
> > other an upgrade from dapper.  I wasn't sure if it was a hardware
> > difference (the newer one, a Thinkpad T60p, shows this problem, the
> > older one, a Thinkpad T40, does not), or a small configuration
> > difference between a clean install and an upgrade.  I'll try to
> > compare the two in the next day or so to see if there is an easy fix.
>
> Great!  I don't think I'm skilled enough to come up w/ a fix.  Well,
> maybe after quite a bit of skull sweat I could. :) Sure hope someone
> can find something because it's really inconvenient not to have the
> Right Alt key in emacs.
>
> Btw that xev is pretty cool.  I didn't even know that such a utility
> existed.
>
> Thanks very much for your reply!
>

Got it!  A thread here
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=287318  pointed me at the
solution, though I ended up using a combination of two solutions.

/etc/X11/xorg.conf has an odd option in the Keyboard section that
looks like this:

Option "XKbOptions"  "lv3:ralt_switch"

I commented that out and restarted X, which didn't really seem to
change anything, most likely because Gnome overrides a bunch of
keyboard settings.  I'm not sure if it's necessary or not, but it's
the first one I tried.

There's also a setting in System -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layout
Options -> Third Level Choosers, where "Press Right Alt key to choose
3rd level" is pre-selected.  I unchecked that, and my right Alt key
started working again.  From the other thread, it looks like you may
need to try one or both methods for disabling this feature.