Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan2 AT cyberspace.org>]

mouse-free window managers and older keyboards

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, sindi keesan wrote:

> > With icewm you click on the penguin to get a menu.  In that
> > menu you will find an xterm.
> 
> I think I read that icewm does not need a mouse.  

It apparently does need a penguin, which I cannot see.  Perhaps it only
displays the penguin in color.

The online FAQ for icewm confirm that a mouse is not needed.  icewm looked
too complicated for me at the moment so I poked around and found the man
page for ratpoison (/usr/local/man) which I converted to html (man2html
ratpoison.1 > ratpoison.html) and read with Lynx.  JP provided the binary
for ratpoison along with ion and pwm.  Ratpoison seems like the easiest to
learn on.  It even tells you to press Ctrl-t ? for a help screen, which
said to type Ctrl-t c for an x-term.  The xterm is full-screen (all the
windows are full-screen except there seems to be a split screen mode too). 
I was able to run Links 2.1.9 by typing the command in the xterm with -g
switch.  Works fine.  It is modelled on the console program 'screen' with
similar commands (the latter lets you switch between text screens on one
VT and copy between them). 




> > > I have an older keyboard (F1-F10) on the left.  None of my 
> > > books tell you how to describe it.  84 keys.
> > 
> > man XF86Config
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb

I found many copies of this man page online and they don't list my
keyboard type.  You can use 
pc101
pc102
pc104       (Windows)
pc105
jp106
microsoft

(jp106 was found in /xkb/geometry/pc along with the others)

I made some wild guesses that did not work:  pcAT  pc84  AT pc

Since my keyboard qualifies as 'older hardware' it would be nice to get
BL2 to work with it even in X.  I use WP51/DOS for work, it relies heavily
on F keys, and I tried repeatedly to get used to the F keys being way at
the top where I could not reach them without taking my hands off the
letter keys, but that wasted a lot of time and I gave up. I have a poor
sense of direction and once I take my hands off the alphabet keys it is
hard to find them again.  Same problem with having to use a mouse - it
really slows me down having to hunt for the blasted thing and then find
the keyboard again (even apart from trying to get the arrow to land where
it should, and there is no room on my desk to waste on a mouse). It would
be helpful to be able to use the same keyboard for Linux and DOS so I
could put them on the same computer. 

I have one keyboard with F keys in both places but the ESC key and arrow
keys are not where expected, and I use several computers so need matching
keyboards.  

I am willing to learn to remap the keyboard if someone wants to help a lot
with that.  Do I take an existing map (pc101) and modify it somehow?

The other option is to power off the computer and change keyboards
whenever I plan to use a program requiring X.  In which case I would
probably use this program as often as I use the Win95 computer with Opera
on it sitting under the desk gathering dust. 


I changed from virtual resolution 800 to 640 and can now see the whole
screen in icewm.  I can also toggle to the X screen with Alt-F5 (not
Alt-F7 as in other distributions that have more VTs set up).  So
everything seems to be working fine except the keyboard.  I look forward
to trying flwriter (I might even switch keyboards just to try with).