I have been reading this tutorial on making my print screen key work through xmodmap: http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Make_a_Sc...rintScreen_Key
I CAN follow the instructions of course, but my question is actually one more to understand what is going on.
What exactly ARE keycodes? If I do the following command:
it prints out
So I would this that this means the Print Screen key has the keycode 111. But if I try showkey in the terminal and press the print screen key, I get back keycode 99, and moreover, if I press the Delete key I get back keycode 111. So what does this mean and what is with the descripancy?! This is mostly just a curiosity issue here. What exactly ARE keycodes?
Well, I think I mostly get it. The key where the Print Screen key is is ALWAYS keycode 111, right? So this tutorial is just having you rename it to F13 for convenience, because it is easier and shorter to type?
Is that the reason?
I was just wondering.
Also, just wondering about the descripancy in the numbers from xmodmap -pke | grep -i print and showkey.
Otherwise, I got it working and all is well. ^_^

I just tried my Print Screen key using xev and get 111. All standard QWERTY keyboards should have the same codes assigned to the keys. The only differences might be "special" keys for multimedia and web browsing.

To answer your other questions I think your partway right. But it's not about being easier to type as much as having a name to associate with the key - something to tell X because it won't understand you saying "I want keycode 111 to PrintScreen." It would have to be "I want F13 to PrintScreen."

You can use the ~/.Xmodmap file to rearrange keys or to assign unused keycodes to new keys. That's where F13 and so on comes in. Something like, "keycode 111 = F13". There are also some reserved names like XF86Play, XF86WWW and more that are nice for multimedia keyboards. As long as this file is processed before X starts you can use the gui's hotkey mapping tool to assign functions to the new keys. Something like, assigning F13 to PrnScrn. In lighter wms like Fluxbox, you can map them by editing the appropriate file since there's no gui app for hotkeys.

Hope this helps.