Some logitech keys not working

[Gary W. Swearingen]

Cameron Hutchison <lists at xdna.net> writes:

> I know it tells me exactly what I have to do to get it working, but I'd
> like to know why it doesn't work out of the box, when the other internet
> keys do work.

I'll guess that the definers of the default dey defs couldn't guess
with any reliability what kind of key each of the possible key codes
would be associated with, since these special keys are, well, special.
So they left them unassociated with anything.

> As far as I can tell, the keyboard map for the kernel is loaded by
> /etc/rcS.d/S05keymap.sh, which loads the file
> /etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz. I cannot see references in there to any
> of the internet keys, so I'm a bit confused as to how some get loaded
> into the kernel key map, but not others.
...
> If this were to be fixed to work in an out-of-the-box dapper install,
> where would these key map definitions go?

First, know that most of what I say is based on some reading of
the manpage for "setkeycodes" (which you mentioned) and those in it's
"See Also" section) and by searching /etc for those program names,
etc. -- something you should do.

There are several key translations going on.  First there's a "key
scan code" to "key code", which I'm guessing is the same for virtual
terminals and X.  These seems to be set (probably changed from kernel
defaults) in /etc/init.d/hotkey-setup which seems to be what you'd
need to look at to see how to customize that translation for your case
of missing keys (at least).

For virtual terminals, there's a key code to key symbol translation
with kernel defaults in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/defkeymap.c
and changed by "setkeycodes" in /etc/rcS.d/S05keymap.sh using
/etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz which seems to be what you'd modify to
customize that.

Then there's a different key code to key symbol translation for
X.  I'll refer you the X documentation, but usually this is configured
in your /etc/X11/ config file, but might need a customized version of
on of the files under /etc/X11/xkb/.  I once fixed my "internet"
keyboard with a custom version of
"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/us".  KDE and GNOME might have
GUI tools for configing this too.  I know there is an old GUI tool
for config'ing xkb, but I found it more trouble than it was worth.
Google will find some xkb config help by people who've been thru it.