KDE : How to input [ Russian + Dvorak + Phonetic ] ??
 

...now that the power has come back on...

The situation before: I used a Qwerty keyboard, and only typed in English in the console, so any/all language settings I used could be set from within KDE, including inputting Russian phonetically...

The situation now: I use a Dvorak keyboard... So I have had to do several things to try to make everything copascetic:

1 - I use 'loadkeys dvorak.map' in rc.keymap so I can type Dvorakly in the console (e.g. before starting X).
2 - In xorg.conf, I have-- Option "XkbLayout" "us" -and- Option "XkbVariant" "dvorak" --so I can log in (KDM) and otherwise work dvorakly in English, within X.

The trouble is, when I switch KDE to inputting Russian (phonetically), the keyboard layout (variant) reverts to Qwerty. I cannot figure out how to get the dvorak-ness to remain, along with the phonetic+Russian input; in other words, I can have Qwerty+Russian, or Qwerty+Russian+phonetic, but not Dvorak+Russian+phonetic.

Google, my docs, and browsing /usr/lib/X11R6/.. and /opt/kde/.. has given me lots of info on console fonts, keyboards/layouts, maps, X-related stuff, but the best I have come up with (by reading between the lines) is that I may need to create my own keymap. What I want doesn't seem to be pre-existing.. I have tried a whack of experiments with setxkblayout/variant/keymap/option too, to no avail..

Before I get further underway, can anyone shed any light on this? :)

Thanks!
--Sasha

The phonetic russial layout is a querty layout. There is no out of the box option for a dvorak version of the phonetic layout.

That would be correct. dvorak-layout for phonetic keymaps seems to be missing. Remember that this is so people with us keyboards con type non-us languages more easily. There's no equivalent "phonetic English" kbd for users of, say, cyrillic, keyboards.

Alternatively - use a HW dvorak kbd, or or a cyrillic kbd instead.

Simon, thanks for the very concise reply, and for verifying my finding that what I was looking for is not actually available. At some point, I plan to do just as you suggest: get a dual English/Cyrillic dvorak keyboard!

:)

Sasha

Of course a really helpful approach wauld be to produce a keyboard map for dvorak/phonetic which can be used as part of the locale. The project would be happy to have one.

Phonetic-Dvorak Russian keyboard already available
 

There is now a phonetic dvorak keyboard for Russian in Ubuntu, at least when using it with Gnome. Sadly, the "W" (expecting "Ж") and "V" (expecting "В") appear to be switched.

It's easy enough to edit the keyboard drivers in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols. It's great fun, too. You can add the characters for the alternative to the keyboard in drawing ink: if you have a desktop keyboard you can add them to the fronts, so they don't wear off; otherwise varnish the finished result.