Workaround for foreign keyboard problem to be entered in FAQ section 4.1.6

[rdiezmail-cygwinxfree]

Hi all:
 
I recently hit the foreign keyboard problem described in section 4.1.6
of the Cygwin/X FAQ. That is, I started with:

 $ setxkbmap.exe de -model pc105
 
 Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property
 [...]
 
and then I tried what the FAQ said, but I got the following error:

  $ xkbcomp -w 3 -xkm -m de /etc/X11/xkb/keymap/xfree86 localhost:0.0
  Error:            Can't find file "xfree86" for keycodes include
                    Exiting
                    Abandoning keycodes file "it

I googled for it, and after a while, I found the solution:

 >  I had the same problem...
 >  By copying the /etc/X11/xkb directory
 >  into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb
 >  It seems to work pretty well now...

(just in case, I renamed the existing file
C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\xkb.lnk beforehand to xkb.bak.lnk before
copying over)

I don't know enough about Cygwin to realise how and why that is; all I
know is, when I copy that directory, my German keyboard works fine in
my X apps.

I'm not sure if it's a bug that could be fixed, but the FAQ entry could
be updated to help people like me. Who's maintaining the FAQ?

Many thanks,
  Ruben





       __________________________________  Ihre erste Baustelle? Wissenswertes für Bastler und Hobby Handwerker. www.yahoo.de/clever

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[Larry Hall (Cygwin X)]

rdiezmail-cygwinxfree@... wrote:

> Hi all:
>  
> I recently hit the foreign keyboard problem described in section 4.1.6
> of the Cygwin/X FAQ. That is, I started with:
>
>  $ setxkbmap.exe de -model pc105
>  
>  Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property
>  [...]
>  
> and then I tried what the FAQ said, but I got the following error:
>
>   $ xkbcomp -w 3 -xkm -m de /etc/X11/xkb/keymap/xfree86 localhost:0.0
>   Error:            Can't find file "xfree86" for keycodes include
>                     Exiting
>                     Abandoning keycodes file "it
>
> I googled for it, and after a while, I found the solution:
>
>  >  I had the same problem...
>  >  By copying the /etc/X11/xkb directory
>  >  into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb
>  >  It seems to work pretty well now...
>
> (just in case, I renamed the existing file
> C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\xkb.lnk beforehand to xkb.bak.lnk before
> copying over)
>
> I don't know enough about Cygwin to realise how and why that is; all I
> know is, when I copy that directory, my German keyboard works fine in
> my X apps.

<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#WJFFM>

> I'm not sure if it's a bug that could be fixed, but the FAQ entry could
> be updated to help people like me. Who's maintaining the FAQ?

No one at the moment. :-(  Would you be interested in taking it up?


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[B Engsig]

rdiezmail-cygwinxfree wrote:

Hi all:
 
I recently hit the foreign keyboard problem described in section 4.1.6
of the Cygwin/X FAQ. That is, I started with:

 $ setxkbmap.exe de -model pc105
 
 Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property
 [...]
 
and then I tried what the FAQ said, but I got the following error:

  $ xkbcomp -w 3 -xkm -m de /etc/X11/xkb/keymap/xfree86 localhost:0.0
  Error:            Can't find file "xfree86" for keycodes include
                    Exiting
                    Abandoning keycodes file "it

I googled for it, and after a while, I found the solution:

 >  I had the same problem...
 >  By copying the /etc/X11/xkb directory
 >  into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb
 >  It seems to work pretty well now...

(just in case, I renamed the existing file
C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\xkb.lnk beforehand to xkb.bak.lnk before
copying over)

...

Well, I _think_ I know what has happened here as it happened to me as well.  I had to copy my cygwin environment, and I made a copy on a DVD (of my whole c:\cygwin directory), and re-installed on a freshly created system.  When this is being done, I believe all symbolic links, that Windows doesn't know about are being changed to Windows shortcuts with a .lnk extension.  Hence, what used to be real (from a cygwin perspective) symbolic links named e.g. "xkb" are changed into Windows shortcuts and renamed "xkb.lnk" during this process.  Subsequently, X doesn't start properly and you can e.g. not use the setxkbmap command.