Console keyboard mapping not right for Emacs (Alt/Meta problem)

Hey guys,

I've tried every combination of stuff in /etc/inputrc that I can think of and I can't get this to work.

The issue is that I want to use my Alt key (specifically, the left Alt) as Meta for Emacs. Amazingly, this works *exactly* as it should in X.

By removing all of the key customizations (which I didn't need anyway) from inputrc, in console mode Alt *mostly* works now. All of the normal navigation functions work- except for M-< and M-> (beginning of file, end of file), and the repeat doesn't work in some cases for Meta functions. Like, if I do C-U 100 M-V it should go back 100 pages, but instead it echos C-U 1 0 0 ESC on the status line.

I have a similar problem on OpenBSD in case anyone knows how to fix it in either place

Thanks,
Randux

Possibly this might help you:

Configuring the Right Alt Key The Same As The Left Alt Key

Thanks a lot, man. That's a very good link. In case anyone else has the same problem, I'll say what I did because I didn't do what that site suggested (not because it was wrong, but because the link is for a different problem) but it did have enough info for me to find what I was looking for.

In /usr/share/kdb/keymaps/i386/qwerty there are a bunch of keymaps. Actually, there are tons of keymaps in many directories in that path but qwerty was the most likely suspect. Of those in that directory, I chose emacs.map.gz as a likely suspect.

The link that Woodsman posted has a sample rc.keymap script and Pat-The-Man already thought ahead and has code in RC.M to check if you have an rc.keymap script in rc.d and if it's executable (+x) he invokes it during init. So all you have to do is copy that script (or do something similar, which is what I did, since that script doesn't fit into my program.) The essential piece is

/usr/bin/loadkeys emacs.map.gz # you can also do this as root without rebooting

In Slackware 10.2, /usr/bin/loadkeys is really a symlink to /bin/loadkeys, so you can do whatever makes sense for you here.

Thanks to the Woodsman for the heads-up and thanks to Pat for making Slackware the most sensible, easy to live with distro there is.

P.S. In case anyone cares, some knowledgeable guys told me how to fix it in OpenBSD also. Totally different fix, but I can post a link if anyone needs it.