So I noticed that Oracle is still selling keyboard and mouse packages. I was thinking of buying one for a Linux box at my house so I had easy access to some of the extra keys such as Compose and Alt-GR. I have some questions though before I do for anyone who has used these -- it's been a very long time since I've used an actual Sun keyboard. • They show that both a PC and UNIX layout is available. Unfortunately, I cannot find anywhere a clear picture of both layouts to determine the difference. Download vdi 2230 english pdf. Can anyone post pictures of the 2 different layouts for me to take a look at?
• I don't remember what some of the 'Solaris shortcut' keys do, like Props, Front, Stop, and Again. Are these vestiges from OpenWindows? Do they have any usage on a modern Solaris like OpenSolaris running Gnome? Do they automatically map to anything useful on Linux, or am I going to have to map them myself to something with XModMap? • When I last used a Sun keyboard, I remember it having a rather mushy feel to it, so I am wondering if any touch typists could weigh in on whether this keyboard 'feels nice' for day to day touch typing.
Use your Sun Microsystems Type 7 Keyboard in Microsoft Windows (Properly, with lettered alt graph mappings and even a supplemental mathematics entry mode) - clockfort/sun-7-keyboard-layout.
Hello, everyone! Although I am still battling a long-term health problem, I am slowly getting back some strength and Linux is good for my spirits, even when my questions seem to spawn only more questions. Although the topic of key mapping has popped up numerous times over the years in JustLinux.com, I am finding conflicting recommendations, many of which refer to XFree86, although I realize that many commands and formats are the same with X.Org, but some configuration methods with X.Org have changed with time.
I've also come across numerous references to people with various varieties of keyboards ending up having their unique keyboards show up in 'xorg.conf' as generic 'pc' keyboards. Apparently, the Debian team is working to address this issue, and I am sure that the move from XFree86 in 'Sarge' to X.org in 'Etch' was a major technical challenge, but I am still excited and enthusiastic about switching to Debian. A couple of years ago, I inquired about using a Sun Type-6 keyboard with SuSE Linux on a Pentium-4-based computer. (At the time that I made my inquiry, I had not even realized that the Sun keyboard had an 8-plug mini-DIN connector that was totally incompatible with the PS/2 port on my computer and that a Y-adapter to use the Type-6 keyboard and mouse I'd been offered was/is about $175 US -- which hardly made the Sun keyboard and mouse 'free'!
I recently purchased a refurbished USB Sun Type-6 keyboard for $5, and already had an optical, USB, three-button (sans scroll-wheel) Hewlett-Packard mouse working with Linux. Crocodile technology 3d serial number. I've gotten used to a UNIX keyboard layout, however -- but I received a keyboard with a Windows layout (the main difference being that Caps Lock and Control are switched). I kept hitting Caps Lock instead of Control and I finally contacted the on-line vendor, who kindly sent me a new, boxed set of a USB Sun Type-7 (UNIX layout) keyboard and Type-7 optical mouse (which is essentially the same as most scroll-wheel USB mice where the scroll wheel is also the middle mouse button if you enable three-button mouse emulation in X). When I asked in 2006 about using the Sun Type-6 keyboard, I was told to use 'sunkeymap', but I had no idea how to generate a keymap file, how to link to it, or that the 'setxkbmap' command existed. I had, however, figured out that the keyboard would not plug into my computer! From what I have gathered after spending time reading in JustLinux.com, I can use the 'setxkbmap' command (and others) to generate and store a keymap file for the Sun Type-7 keyboard, but some people state that this approach is 'the old way.'
I don't know if there are any repositories on the Internet of preconfigured keymap files for particular keyboards, but I suspect not. (The keymap file that I generated was a bit of a mess and using key combinations, such as shift, control, and the meta key yielded a rather unwieldy mess, I must admit.) I ran across 'linkEAD' in O'Reilly's Linux Desktop Hacks, which was published in 2005, but am pleased to see that my three-DVD installation discs for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r3 ('Etch') include a Debian package for 'linkEAD'.