X Linux and Multimedia keyboard: Help
 

Greetings;

I'm trying to get full functionality out of a newly purchased IBM RapidAccess III USB Type keyboard(Says model SK-8809 on the bottom and does not have the USB hub). This appears as A Silitek IBM USB Keyboard at module showtime, but looks identical to the Rapid Access III keyboard minus the hub.

With the help of a little programme called hotkeys, I have mapped out the multimedia buttons and can control xmms and the sound system volume/mute controls just fine. It's about the 9 slim colour keys along the top edge of the keyboard, and getting all of them to work in X. The first and last generate X events and are programmed to launch applications. Cool I say. But the remaining 7 keys do not generate keycodes when pressed. This is strange since in text mode (not an X shell like xterm or gnome-terminal) every key pressed generates a code, even all 9 colour keys. The codes are different between X and text too, for a given key.

I was pleased enough when I rebuild my kernel for the HID module and the keyboard just worked, but I'd like even more to get the 7 extra keys working.

Any suggestions on where to start fiddling around?

My system is like this:

Linux 2.6.12.1
Slackware 10
Gnome 2.6(a little old but I still like it)
Standard Xorg server with a GEFORCE MX440 Video Card(Nvidia)


Thanks

Re: X Linux and Multimedia keyboard: Help
 

You can run "xev" and see what are the keycodes that the keys use.
Also "xbindkeys" is a very good program and has an option that show you keycodes
with xbindkeys you can (as the program name says) bind any command to a key (or combination of keys)
e.g ctrl+k opens a xterm, multimedia key 2 starts mozilla etc.

Re: Re: X Linux and Multimedia keyboard: Help
 

Thanks for the reply. The problem is: When I am in X, 7 of the 9 keys are not assimilated(...sorry couldn't resist). :) xev does not show a thing for 7 of the extra keys, so I'm stumped as to how to wake up the keyboard. I figure it has to be something to do with how X and maybe gnome see the keyboard. No X event is generated for these seven keys.

How do I get these keys to generate a code? Nothing in the syslogs in the way of error messages: i.e no atkbd.c error messages.

And as I said in the first message the codes are different when I boot into text/console mode. This fact gives me a small clue. Small indeed.

I know this is a little late to the conversation, but I've been looking up how to get my multimedia keyboard working and many people have said the same thing. For some reason when the using USB vs. PS2 connection, some of the keys do not respond.

In some of the posts I've seen, just using a USB to PS2 adapter has solved the problem.

Some keys have unknown scancodes for the AT driver and they don't get keycodes. The X server uses its own mapping but
when it starts it reads the kernel mapping and then it maps it to its own. Because the kernel doesn't "see" these
keycodes the keys don't work in X either.

Press a key and then run "dmesg". You will read a message like the following
Run setkeycodes to set a keycode to the specified scancode. The syntax is very simple and it is shown in the above
example. To see which keycodes are free to use run "dumpkeys"

Put these commands in a initscript so that when you reboot they will work and you are ok. You will have one
setkeycodes command for every uknown key.

After that the keys will be reported in xev and xbindkeys will see them

Another program that you can use instead of xbindkeys is keytouch (keytouch.sf.net). That is after you have done
the setkeycodes thing described above. Keytouch also have plugins for many commands so that you don't need to run them
like with xbindkeys.