On Sun, Oct 23, 2005 at 08:36:22PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> Sean Davis <dive-nb@endersgame.net> writes:
> > I've recently switched to a type6 usb keyboard on my PC. Using wskbd @ ukbd
> > is working just fine for console and X, however I'm wondering.. where do I
> > need to dig around if I'd like to use the sun buttons (the L pad on the left,
> > and the volume controls/sleep button on the right)? I was looking at output
> > from xev, and nothing happens when those keys are punched. I would like to
> > bind them to perform useful functions (or at least keystrokes) but I don't
> > see how I could do that with xmodmap if xev isn't even picking up
> > keypress/release events.
> >
> > Any pointers would be much appreciated.
> 
> A lot of this stuff gets swallowed by the ws driver before it ever
> gets high enough up the stack for anything to see it. I tried diving
> in a long time ago to find the "extra" keys on my microsoft natural
> keyboard.

I was pretty sure this was the case; enough USB keyboards have extra buttons
now that we'd probably need a bunch of specific keyboard drivers to support
them (or at least some sets of codes to pass on further than we do now...)

I'm willing to hope some solution will be found in the future; I do not
really need the extra buttons, as I'm using this keyboard simply because I
prefer this key layout, it would just be nice to have the L-keys and such
work eventually.

> I'm afraid that although I verified the USB device was
> sending the codes I gave up after a while trying to understand the
> wscons stuff well enough to fix the issue.

My kernel hacking has been limited to helping debug the tl(4) driver a few
years ago, so I'd be starting from scratch if I went digging after this.
Which I would be willing to do, however my work schedule doesn't give me
much pleasure-coding time these days. If you could send me some hints on
where to look, I could always see if I can figure anything more out when I
have the time.

> FYI, there is documentation on Microsoft's web site about all sorts of
> key codes a modern keyboard can generate over USB -- there is this big
> table I got the last time I was playing with this.

Cool, I'll look for it.

> Perry

-Sean