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Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE UNIX
I had the following X11 keymap problem in KDE applications like Kate (Emacs, xterm, and xev all exhibited the expected behavior):
  • If I pressed Shift+Down, it acted as if I'd pressed Shift+Left.
  • If I pressed Shift+Up, nothing happened.
  • If I pressed Shift+8, it acted like Shift+Right (instead of *).
  • If I pressed Shift+=, it acted like Shift+Left (instead of +).
An existing hint suggested using:
xmodmap -e "keycode 78 = Left"
xmodmap -e "keycode 74 = Right"
in my xinitrc, but that didn't completely fix the problem. After lots of research and experimentation, I discovered a solution: The default keymap shipped with my X11.app has entries for several keycodes the PowerBook keyboard cannot generate. Apparently KDE (probably Qt in truth) examines the keycode entries in ascending order and gets confused, since it finds the spurrious entries first. The solution, then, is to delete the spurious entries. First, save a copy of the keymap:
 $ xmodmap -pke > fixedmap
Then, find the following lines in the file oldmap and delete everything after the equal sign.
keycode 74 = Right asterisk
keycode 78 = Right plus
keycode 80 = Down equal
keycode 85 = Up slash
Save the modified file as ~/.Xmodmap and restart X11.app. Note: for some reason, this didn't work right away. I made some trial edits to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to find out why, and it started working; removed my changes and it still works. Maybe you just have to touch /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.

I own a Al PowerBook G4 15" running Panther. I use Apple's X11.app, and my KDE is 3.2.1 from unstable fink. It's possible this solution is only necessary under that configuration.
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Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE | 5 comments | Create New Account
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Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE
Authored by: bus-error on Apr 24, '04 09:19:17AM

I had the same problem with a my Quicksilver and fixed it in the same way. I did think about posting a hint but thought I must have overlooked a more obvious solution.



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Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE
Authored by: romcross on May 10, '04 04:02:39PM

I too am having X11 + KDE asterisk and plus problems. However, unfortunately, none of the suggestions I've found on mac os x hints have helped so far.

I tried removing the sections you recommend, and creating my own .Xmodmap however this did not solve the problem, and I'm certain the .Xmodmap was being read by the system.

I've even resorted to uninstalling Apple's X11 and installing Xfree86 from binary with Fink, but the same problem remains.

To me this suggested that there may be some problem with KDE itself or the binaries, but before committing to the time needed for a complete build, I wanted some confirmation that this investement of time would pay off with a working asterisk and plus key in KDE's konsole.

Does anyone know whether the broken keymapping problem can be fixed by recompiling KDE from source via fink? I'm really very sad that I can't type 'ls *' with a multi terminal konsole :-(

Thanks.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE
Authored by: huckit on May 02, '06 08:36:17AM
Thanks for all the tips, but what gives? I follow all the xmodmap steps given and start konsole. The * works then, however, when I resize, it fails. Too bad X11 is so painful in OS X, my linux buddy is laughing at me.
<a href="http://cryptostenchies.com">Unsafe Camp</a>


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Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE
Authored by: nwpierce on May 23, '04 10:28:37PM

To simplify things a tad, you can just put this in your ~/.Xmodmap:

keycode 74 =
keycode 78 =
keycode 80 =
keycode 85 =

and then touch /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc as mentioned earlier... No need to copy the whole map :-)



[ Reply to This | # ]
Fix broken shift+down/up/8/= in X11 and KDE
Authored by: nwpierce on May 23, '04 10:33:09PM

And I neglected to mention this just now, but thanks for figuring this out... I don't have a very good understanding of X keymapping magick and wasn't getting anywhere very quickly with my own attempts.

This kde asterisk thing has been annoying me for quite some time now :-)



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