Acer Aspire One 532H Keyboard with missing < | > keys
 

While in the USA, I picked up an AAO 532H which is an excellent little netbook besides one issue.

I live in Finland and thus use a Swe/Fin key layout. As a result of this, my < | > key no longer exists.

My current solution is to set up a UK layout that triggers only when right ctrl is held.. it's not a bad solution but obviously only works in a Window manager.

I need to be able to use < | > in Runlevel 3

What is the best way to either assign these characters to one of the more useless (to me) keys on the keyboard so that it affects RL3 and RL5.

Any advice or better solutions are extremely welcome!

Thanks!

In runlevel 3 (non graphic) you can redefine any key. To do so requires that you can actually enter the key on the keyboard or cut and paste it from the web.

Use the following:

showkey

press the key you want to redefine to get it's keycode

wait for the prompt to return

create a new file (name it anything you wish) and put the following in it (replace $$$ with the keycode)

edit filename

# redefine unused key as bar key
keycode $$$ = bar brokenbar

# My F11 key can be redefined by
# keycode 87 = bar brokenbar
# keycode 87 = < > # this would create F11 as < and Shift-F11 as >
# Some keys need to be defined as follows
# string F100 = "<"
# string F101 = ">"
# keycode 87 = F100 F101 # results in the same as keycode 87 = < >


After saving the file and exiting the editor test it by typing

loadkeys filename

Immediately after the prompt returns press the newly defined key (in my case F11) or shift + key to see the results.

This needs to be loaded at each terminal session.

To make this happen automatically edit your .bashrc file and add the command

/usr/bin/loadkeys filename

to the end of the file. (You may need to use "which loadkeys" to find out where loadkeys is located on your system.

To make this change effective for all users put your keymap change in a location outside your home directory and change /etc/bash.bashrc instead of .bashrc

Hope this helps.