Friends,

I have two questions (related):

1. How can you start the "start menu" in RHL (Gnome) if your mouse is dead i.e. completely keyboard navigation.

2. How can I put "windoz" key to better use in Linux? Does it return Meta2? Can I have two meta keys?

Thanks.
R

YOu can change what these keys do under the keyboard config in Preferences. I have left windows key mapped to open the start menu and I have keystrokes mapped to many different things other than the default.

KD

Does your windows key by default opens the "start" menu on RHL. I'm using Fedora Core 1 Test 1 x64 but it doesn't. Neither it is on old RHL 9 installation on desktop. What code is Windows Key sends and how to change default "start" menu binding?

It doesn't do this by default. You have to remap it using the system-config-keyboard tool, which is available under Preferences on the "start" menu (applications) in Fedora Core 3.

KD

Thanks for help.

However, in case of machine without mouse, can I boot in without gui mode and change it? what is command/config file for that. Since I don't have my touchpad working, i can't click on "start" menu. unfortunately, there is no PS2 port and I don't have a USB mouse I'm kinda stuck here.

Not sure how to do it without mouse. What brand of touchpad do you have? You should do some googling to find the drivers/setup for it and get it working. Or, is it a hardware problem?

KD

Actually, I think my touch pad is supported by default distribution but I screwed my X settings. The auto-detect should work, since I think I saw it working initially when my screen was screwed initially due to faulty driver and later due to EDID settings. (Even now I think the driver is faulty as it appears to corrupt video ram while coming back to text mode via ctrl-alt-bksp). I spent a lot of time fixing my laptop screen (its a widescreen and couldn't find enough info then) but finally the screen resolution worked fine in all its glory of 1200x800. But by manipulating the X settings so carelessly, I must have done something to remove the touchpad completely and now I can't find the easy fix for it.

Yeah, I know non-gui fix to X would solve it but I'm too lazy (rather not enough time, since I haven't even touched my laptop for months now) to do it by hand. So was looking an easy solution to get it auto-detected.

OTOH, A novice user can also have a problem where the mouse/touchpad just dies and what alternatives does (s)he have in this case. I assume that novice won't even know how to boot in single user non-gui mode and asking to fix X is way too much for them.

Linux need to become more idiot-resistent or rather idiot-friendly. But we are getting there. Atleast, www.linuxquestions.org is definitely idiot-friendly.