Freebsd – Use two different keyboards with different layouts in FreeBSD in X environment

freebsdkeyboardkeyboard-layoutxorg

I have bought a laptop and installed FreeBSD on it. I am now trying to finish this all.

The laptop has a Danish keyboard, but I have also a USB typematrix keyboard with bépo (French Dvorak) layout and would like to be able to use them both, at least in a graphical environment.

I think that's it. To make it clear, I want each keyboard to be usable in X with its own keymap like normal and not having to switch with a key each time I actually switch keyboard.

I have read about kbdmux.

Can I tell kbdmux to use bépo keymap when receiving input from the USB keyboard, while relying on the Danish keymap while on the board keyboard? The console keymap is the danish.iso keymap, as set in /etc/rc.conf.

Or should I disable kbdmux and address the keyboards and their maps in xorg.conf?

Best Answer

Kbdmux combines two keyboard to one by switching the original devices to only return scancodes and translating them through only one keymap. When using Xorg kbdmux itself is switched to just return scancodes with Xorg doing the translation. The problem is of course that Xorg only sees one keyboard attached. So, I think your idea is in fact the only possible solution. You have to disable kbdmux and connect the real keyboards as individual instances to Xorg.

Disable device

Here's one idea towards identifying which keyboard is which. You can use the command xinput to enable and disable devices.

Example

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint                     id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ ThinkPad Extra Buttons                    id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]

The above output shows the various devices that I have on my Thinkpad laptop. I only have 1 keyboard attached, this one:

    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Now take a look at the properties available through this device:

$ xinput list-props "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
Device 'AT Translated Set 2 keyboard':
    Device Enabled (124):   1
    Coordinate Transformation Matrix (126): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.

From the above you can see that it's enabled, so let's disable it:

$ xinput set-prop "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard" "Device Enabled" 0

To enable it:

$ xinput set-prop "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard" "Device Enabled" 1

The idea?

You could enable disable one of the keyboards using this command to determine which one you're on.

References

second keyboard to run commands

KDE – Managing Multiple Keyboard Layouts and Shortcuts

You can set

localectl set-keymap --no-convert <keymap>

Which will change the keymap used at startup. Substitute keymap here with the one you'd like to use. Also ensure that you change your other locale information.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Xorg – How to Tell Which Keyboard Was Used to Press a Key

Disable device

Example

The idea?

References

KDE – Managing Multiple Keyboard Layouts and Shortcuts

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