Umlaute

Forum: X and Fluxbox
Topic: Umlaute
started by: mara

Posted by mara on Mar. 17 2005,08:11

Hi,

I posted my question under embedded too, but I think its probably better here:

I have DSL running on a compact flash card, there is supposed to run only one application on X on it. Its running fine, but German umlaute are not everywhere shown properly (but working on other distro). For example, the headline on windows is ok, but on buttons the umlaute äöü are being replaced by a questionmark.

Used keymap is de-latin1-nodeadkeys. And what is the exact file where I find information about that?

Any ideas??
Thx, Mara

Posted by Hellboy on Mar. 24 2005,08:48

vi /opt/bootlocal.sh

change a line

"loadkeys xx" to "loadkeys de-latin1-nodeadkeys"

reboot

Posted by althena77 on April 13 2005,15:20

Hello!!

I tried this and it worked so far, I now can type german umlaute like ä and ü.

However I can no longer type @ even the virtul keyboard does not work here anymore.

Any ideas??

Posted by althena77 on April 13 2005,23:00

Hello again!!

I just noticed, that this problem only happens in Firefox. When I use Sylpheed or Beaver I still can type @.
What can I do to be able to type this in Firefo too??

Many Thanks and greetings

Posted by JO+ on June 17 2005,22:24

Late - but maybe it will be useful to someone.

I had the same problem with Firefox - seems you have to use the
'big' X-Server XFree86.dsl i.s.o. the DSL built-in (Xvesa, right?)
and add some parts needed for internationalisation:
- /usr/X11R6/bin/xkbcomp (keyboard compiler e.g. from Debian Sarge works)
- /etc/X11/xkb (directory with a lot of keybd layouts, also from e.g. Debian Sarge)
Then update your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file with:
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#Option "XkbLayout" "us"
for a German keyboard (that's what makes my life easier).
See also the info for installing XFree86.dsl (.xserverrc and friends) !!!

Background:
--------------
it's a problem with the keyboard mapping of the AltGr key (right
alt), which is used on some non-US keyboards to create special
characters like @ (AltGr + Q or 2), | (AltGr + <) ...

Googling around I found the following errata at Red Hat
(http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2004-488.html):

Quote

...
These updated packages also fix a bug where GTK+ applications failed to
interpret certain key combinations correctly when used with certain X
servers. Problematic key combinations included such keys as the AltGr key.
For example, the problem occurred with Hummingbird, ReflectionX, and
X-Win32 X servers.

When the server was configured to use the Swiss German, the Swiss French,
or the France French keyboard layouts, it was impossible to enter any of
the Mode_Switched characters within GTK based applications. Traditional
applications such as XTerm and Emacs operated correctly. A simple test was
to enter AltGr+7, resulting in a pipe '|' output. When gnome-terminal is
run with XFree86, this succeeds, but with ReflectionX, it fails.

This problem has been traced to unwarranted assumptions in the GDK
keyboard mapping code about the data, which was being sent back from the
X server.

All users of gtk2, pango, and librsvg2 should upgrade to these updated
packages, which resolve these issues.

Looks like an incompatibility between gtk+/gtk2 and the X server
in DSL.

If someone has an easier solution (e.g. patching the gtk20.dsl)
I would highly appreciate that. The process above is horrible -
in brief avoid!

Posted by clacker on June 18 2005,01:39

JO+, I don't have a German or Swedish keyboard to try this on, but if you're running off of a liveCD and could try this it might work. I looked at the use of xmodmap < here > and I think it should work. I thought that the problem was that firefox grabs the <gr> key and uses it as another alt key. Does it help you to make the following .Xmodmap file

Code Sample

remove mod4 = Mode_switch
add mod5 = Mode_switch

and then run xmodmap .Xmodmap

Could someone with one of those crazy keyboards try this and see if it helps firefox?

EDIT: added spaces per JO+'s observation

Posted by JO+ on June 18 2005,14:34

yes, clacker, that's it - great!

I confirm this works with a crazy german keyboard and both live CDs DSL-1.1.iso and the new DSL-1.2.1.iso.
xmodmap complains, if you don't use the exact syntax, requiring spaces around the '=' :

Code Sample

remove mod4 = Mode_switch
add mod5 = Mode_switch
! ^ ^---2 spaces

Sorry, I didn't see your previous posting.

Thanks a lot, Jo

Posted by ke4nt1 on June 18 2005,16:50

bookmark

Posted by guest on July 14 2005,14:59

I cannot write @ in sylpheed and other apps, too.

Does this mod works for mee, too?

Where do I create the file?