[arch-general] Microsoft keyboard and unworking keys
Hi all, I have a Microsoft keyboard (*hides*) and some of its multimedia keys don't work (most of them do, though), as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'". I don't really think I'll get them to work, but I'll ask anyway: is there any hack to make them work? It's a Digital Media 3000 if it makes any difference. TIA
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X. ~celti
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:38, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
as in "they don't show any keycode on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
Nope. Those are scancodes, not keycodes. There are plenty of howtos out there on mapping scancodes to keycodes; it's been long enough since I've needed to that I've forgotten the exact syntax. Glad I could help. ~celti
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:38, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: > as in "they don't show any keycode > on 'xev' or 'showkey'".
It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
Nope. Those are scancodes, not keycodes. There are plenty of howtos out there on mapping scancodes to keycodes; it's been long enough since I've needed to that I've forgotten the exact syntax.
Glad I could help.
~celti
I'm glad, too. Thank you! :)
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Andre Ramaciotti < andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com <daenyth%2Barch@gmail.com>> writes: > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti > <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: >> as in "they don't show any keycode >> on 'xev' or 'showkey'". > > It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old?
It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:38, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: probably
contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only).
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
Nope. Those are scancodes, not keycodes. There are plenty of howtos out there on mapping scancodes to keycodes; it's been long enough since I've needed to that I've forgotten the exact syntax.
Glad I could help.
~celti
I'm glad, too. Thank you! :)
Actually... I should pay more atention to what I'm doing. I've just realized that I was pressing the wrong key; I was pressing one by the side of the key that doesn't produces any code. They key I should be pressing still doesn't show anycode when running showkey as `showkey -s`.
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 17:32, André Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Andre Ramaciotti < andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: > Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com <daenyth%2Barch@gmail.com>> writes: >> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti >> <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: >>> as in "they don't show any keycode >>> on 'xev' or 'showkey'". >> >> It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old? > > It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most probably, > these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way > (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect > this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:38, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: probably
> contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only). >
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
Nope. Those are scancodes, not keycodes. There are plenty of howtos out there on mapping scancodes to keycodes; it's been long enough since I've needed to that I've forgotten the exact syntax.
Glad I could help.
~celti
I'm glad, too. Thank you! :)
Actually... I should pay more atention to what I'm doing. I've just realized that I was pressing the wrong key; I was pressing one by the side of the key that doesn't produces any code. They key I should be pressing still doesn't show anycode when running showkey as `showkey -s`.
Oh. In that case, it probably does use some silly proprietary Microsoft thing. No idea how to help there, sorry. ~celti
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Andre Ramaciotti < andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:38, Andre Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23, Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 15:19, Andre Ramaciotti > <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: >> Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com <daenyth%2Barch@gmail.com>< daenyth%2Barch@gmail.com <daenyth%252Barch@gmail.com>>> writes: >>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 16:34, Andre Ramaciotti >>> <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> as in "they don't show any keycode >>>> on 'xev' or 'showkey'". >>> >>> It sounds like those keys are broken. It should be sending something. Is it old? >> >> It's barely used. I don't think the keys are broken, most
>> these keys send the "I've been pressed" signal in a non-standard way >> (you know, it's Microsoft, it wouldn't surprise me at all). I suspect >> this because this keyboard comes with an installation CD, which probably >> contains some kind of special driver (for Windows and Mac OS X only). >> > > Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 17:32, André Ramaciotti <andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote: probably, them.
> You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to > keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X. > > ~celti
Er, sorry, I'm blind. You said you used showkey. Did you try it with '-s'?
Yay! It did return some key codes, though they were kind of strange, like a single key printing '0xe0 0x5d' (instead of a single byte). Will I have any problems because of this?
Nope. Those are scancodes, not keycodes. There are plenty of howtos out there on mapping scancodes to keycodes; it's been long enough since I've needed to that I've forgotten the exact syntax.
Glad I could help.
~celti
I'm glad, too. Thank you! :)
Actually... I should pay more atention to what I'm doing. I've just realized that I was pressing the wrong key; I was pressing one by the side of the key that doesn't produces any code. They key I should be pressing still doesn't show anycode when running showkey as `showkey -s`.
Oh. In that case, it probably does use some silly proprietary Microsoft thing. No idea how to help there, sorry.
~celti
I've found something interestingly weird. The output of ls -lh /dev/input/by-id shows that this keyboard has three /dev/input entries: /dev/input/event14, /dev/input/event15 and /dev/input/js0 (?) . Event14 is the "main keyboard", where most of the keypresses result in an event. Both event15 and js0 react to only one key (one of the non-working ones). So mistery somewhat solved: it is indeed a Microsoft thing, and I'm semi-officially giving up making this keyboard work 100%. I has more multimedia keys that I'll ever need, anyway (most of them working).
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 6:47 AM, André Ramaciotti < andre.ramaciotti@gmail.com> wrote:
I've found something interestingly weird. The output of ls -lh /dev/input/by-id shows that this keyboard has three /dev/input entries: /dev/input/event14, /dev/input/event15 and /dev/input/js0 (?) . Event14 is the "main keyboard", where most of the keypresses result in an event. Both event15 and js0 react to only one key (one of the non-working ones). So mistery somewhat solved: it is indeed a Microsoft thing, and I'm semi-officially giving up making this keyboard work 100%. I has more multimedia keys that I'll ever need, anyway (most of them working).
Next time make sure not to buy a ms keyboard :) I replaced one a few months ago, which was from my non linux days, and worked perfectly under linux. but just out of principle, i bought a non ms keyboard this time.
Celti <celticmadman@gmail.com> writes:
Likely they don't have a kernel mapping, so X doesn't even see them. You'll need to get their scancodes with `showkeys`, and map them to keycodes with `setkeycodes`, while out of X.
~celti
As I said, they don't show a keycode on 'showkeys'. I think I need a hack at a lower level.
participants (5)
-
Andre Ramaciotti
-
André Ramaciotti
-
Celti
-
Daenyth Blank
-
gt