[xkb] new french mac layout

[Étienne BERSAC]

Hello,

On a ibook (i don't know for other ppc), a french installation out of the box
select a PC keymap. But the kbd mac fr is not usable (unable to make tild square
bracket, etc). So i suppose to use the map shipped by linux-france.org :
ftp://ftp.linux-france.org/pub/macintosh/mac-fr-ext_new.map.gz to
/usr/share/keymaps/mac-fr-ext_new.map.gz
ftp://ftp.linux-france.org/pub/macintosh/fr to
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/macintosh/fr (the symbols files)

sorry, i don't know precisely which package contains the keymaps.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

explanation in french are at
http://www.linux-france.org/macintosh/clavier_gentoo.html for gentoo and
Xorg/Xfree86. I notice also that the model of the keyboard is pc105 instead of
macintosh.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Could you test a recent Hoary live CD and see if it fixes your problem?

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hoary/array-6/

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

This is the second time i try to boot a Live hoary for ppc from a already
installed hoary. Unable to boot. I waste 2 Blank CD (Md5 ok, mount ok). I'm a
bit fed'up with it. :)

So, i can test this with a ibook G4.

Sorry.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> This is the second time i try to boot a Live hoary for ppc from a already
> installed hoary. Unable to boot. I waste 2 Blank CD (Md5 ok, mount ok). I'm a
> bit fed'up with it. :)
>
> So, i can test this with a ibook G4.
>
> Sorry.

I'm afraid there isn't much that we can do to help, without more detail.
"Unable to boot" doesn't give us enough information to even guess at the problem.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

> I'm afraid there isn't much that we can do to help, without more detail.
> "Unable to boot" doesn't give us enough information to even guess at the problem.

i prefer to open a new bug report.
see https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7231

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Denis, can you confirm whether this replacement keymap is reasonable?

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Denis, can you confirm whether this replacement keymap is reasonable?

This keyboard is much the same as with OS X.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Okey, i try an hoary install and an hoary live on this ppc, both array-6 :

Hoary-Install : the keymap was french. but pc105 for X and mac (as expected) for
the console.
Hoary-Live : The keymap was english and pc105 ...

If i configure, with gnome, the keyboard layout, i'm unable to type special
letter like ~, |, €, [, ], and a lot of other !!! Even if i try to configure the
« third level key ». This is mainly design for PC.

The layout i propose allow to use Alt+Maj as Alt-Gr on PC. And this is the
behaviour on OS X.

[Denis Barbier (barbier)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Denis, can you confirm whether this replacement keymap is reasonable?

I have no Mac hardware and thus cannot help, sorry.
All I can say is that changing this layout has been requested for
a long time, but I do not know if it has any negative impact.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I have no Mac hardware and thus cannot help, sorry.
It's not a problem.

> All I can say is that changing this layout has been requested for
> a long time, but I do not know if it has any negative impact.
I test it on debian, and then on ubuntu, warty and hoary, with XFree86 and Xorg.
I can just say that french keyboard are unusable without this map or by blindly
find the key with a PC keymap !

I repeat. This only touch french user, and this allow french user to user
decently their keyboard !

What kind of negative impact do you fear ? ask, i will test for you.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

The negative impact is simple: it's different to Warty, it's different to Hoary
Preview, it's different to Fedora, it's different to all the other
distributions. None of this is, in itself, a bad thing. But we need to study
it carefully and work out what's best. Keyboard layouts are very subjective,
and it's very, very hard to do 'the right thing', because there is no single
right thing to do. I'll have a look at it and talk to some other French Mac
users and see what they think -- it could be that what you think is perfect is,
to them, unusable. Keyboard layouts are not as easy as you think.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> The negative impact is simple: it's different to Warty, it's different to Hoary
> Preview, it's different to Fedora, it's different to all the other
> distributions.
Yes, you're right, it different from *ALL* Distro. But every french user have to
do manualy this change. see the very recent news :
http://www.linux-france.org/macintosh/clavier_rpm3.html and the GNU/Kinux on
macintosh page from the linux-france.org website :
http://www.linux-france.org/macintosh/ .

> But we need to study
> it carefully and work out what's best. Keyboard layouts are very subjective,
> and it's very, very hard to do 'the right thing', because there is no single
> right thing to do.
Once again, you're right, i forget this important point of view. You can use the
fr_new instead of fr which allow to select the old or new keyboard map. But
there at least one bug : the keymap loaded from gnome is the pc one, not the mac
(old or new).

> I'll have a look at it and talk to some other French Mac
> users and see what they think -- it could be that what you think is perfect is,
> to them, unusable.
Thank you very much, daniel.

> Keyboard layouts are not as easy as you think.
I'm sorry if i wasn't kind enough. Sorry.

Best regards.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello Daniel,

I seek for Linux on mac french user, to tell their experience. A guy, named
Étienne Herlent, give me a really good addresse : fr.comp.os.unix.mac . Somes
user (and some of them user ubuntu and are glade with it) first question is :
How to configure FR keymap for mac.

ex :
http://web2news.ac-versailles.fr/article.php?id_article=%3C420e3241%240%24612%24636a15ce%40news.free.fr%3E&group_name=fr_comp_os_unix_mac&begin=0
Just see the first question : « comment changer le mapping du clavier et lequel
choisir pour avoir la
configuration FR des claviers mac ? », in english : « How to change the keymap,
and which keymap do i choose to have a fr config for a mac keyboard ? »

If you speek french, then ask on the usenet group fr.comp.os.unix.mac, you will
find answers.

Thank you.

[Etienne Herlent (eherlent)]

Hello,
I am the guy who is responsible of the web page at
http://www.linux-france.org/macintosh/ (aka wlfo/m) and also a maintainer of the
french keyboard mapping for Macintosh which is downloadable at this web page.
I really don't understand why you are hesitating to integrate it into your
distrib. You say "it not the same as in other distro". Of course ! I don't know
a distro for Macintosh with a correct mapping for the french keyboard and I am
using Linux on Macintosh for years now (since Mk-Linux DR3, it is for this
distro I made the first mapping for french Macintosh keyboard).
I installed Hoary-preview on my G4 QuickSilver a few days ago. As usual I had to
install the french mapping from wlfo/m, and as usual it works.
So what ?

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I really don't understand why you are hesitating to integrate it into your
> distrib. You say "it not the same as in other distro". Of course ! I don't know
> a distro for Macintosh with a correct mapping for the french keyboard and I am
> using Linux on Macintosh for years now (since Mk-Linux DR3, it is for this
> distro I made the first mapping for french Macintosh keyboard).
> I installed Hoary-preview on my G4 QuickSilver a few days ago. As usual I had to
> install the french mapping from wlfo/m, and as usual it works.
> So what ?

'It is not the same in other distro' -> bad thing. The thing is, saying what is
'best' is pointless here (since it's all personal preference): what you have to
consider is what users will EXPECT to happen when they sit down at the keyboard
of an Ubuntu machine and start typing. Mainly users migrating from other
distributions, Windows and OS X. If they start typing and they have no idea
what the characters on the screen are, that's a bad thing.

If you took someone who had used OS X all his life and put him at an Ubuntu
machine with that keyboard map, would it be exactly what he expected? Or different?

[Olivier Vogel (oliviervogel)]

Created an attachment (id=1902)
Xmodmap for the macintosh swiss french keyboard

[Olivier Vogel (oliviervogel)]

(From update of attachment 1902)
I have exactly the same problem with the SWISS french keyboard on my Macintosh.
Here is the Xmodmap that I use to solve this problem.

I must admit that the others distros have the same problem: they don't handle
the fact that the swiss french keyboard is not the same on a Macintosh than on
a PC.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello,

It seems that this fr_new keymap is needed for ibook but for for large keyboard,
a pc105 keymap is usable. I repeat, this keymap is *needed* for laptop.

Thanks.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Another example of french user using the fr_new keymap on ibook :
http://twolife.free.fr/vrac/ibook/XF86Config-4 (just search fr_new).
I found also this bug report in the bugs.debian.org :
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=234113 . Another french user
use the fr_new keymap.

If you need other Just see http://www.google.fr/search?q=fr_new+ppc :)

So, ibook users - and maybe powerbooks users too - use this keymap. I suggest to
add the fr_new and to select it for ibook and powerbooks is it possible ? I
think this wont break people happy with the current situation (those with pc105
keyboard), but fix the problem with other ppc users. I just think to an user who
switch back to OS X because he couldn't type the pipe (and brackets, tilde, etc)
!!! ( http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=100 ). This is a real problem
for ibook and powerbook users !!!

Thanks.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Okay,

I submit a bug report at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2870 as i
was adviced at the xorg ml.

Thanks.

[Pierre Scacchi (pierre-scacchi)]

For those who had some problems with Debian/Ubuntu X11 french keyboards on
iBooks, here is how I resolved the thing on my Debian Sid 6 months ago:

* get the fr_new keymap
* copy it in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols
* change your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. Here is my keyboard section:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver "keyboard"
        Option "CoreKeyboard"
        Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
        Option "XkbModel" "macintosh"
# Option "XkbLayout" "fr"
        Option "XkbSymbols" "fr_new"
EndSection

* restart X11

The following table is what one can expect on iBooks with Debian fr_new and OSX.
fr_new is not complete compared to osx (at least, my version), but most
important keys such as |[{]}@\ are available:

Character Debian fr_new Mac OSX
=======================================
alt+@ •
alt+&
alt+é ë ë
alt+" “
alt+' ‘
alt+( { {
alt+§ ¶ ¶
alt+è « «
alt+! ¡ ¡
alt+ç Ç Ç
alt+à ø ø
alt+) } }
alt+- — —
alt+a æ æ
alt+z  Â
alt+e ê ê
alt+r ® ®
alt+t †
alt+y Ú Ú
alt+u º
alt+i î î
alt+o œ
alt+p π
alt+^ ô ô
alt+$ €
alt+q â ‡
alt+s Ò Ò
alt+d ∂
alt+f ƒ
alt+g fi
alt+h Ì Ì
alt+j Ï Ï
alt+k È È
alt+l ¬ ¬
alt+m µ µ
alt+ù Ù Ù
alt+` @ @
alt+< ≤
alt+w ‹
alt+x ≈
alt+c © ©
alt+v ◊
alt+b ß ß
alt+n ~
alt+, ∞
alt+; …
alt+: ÷ ÷
alt+= ≠

alt+shift+@ Ÿ
alt+shift+& ´
alt+shift+é É „
alt+shift+" ”
alt+shift+' ’
alt+shift+( [ [
alt+shift+§ å å
alt+shift+è » »
alt+shift+! Û Û
alt+shift+ç Á Á
alt+shift+à Ø
alt+shift+) ] ]
alt+shift+- – –
alt+shift+a Æ Æ
alt+shift+z Å Å
alt+shift+e Ê Ê
alt+shift+r ¤ ‚
alt+shift+t ™
alt+shift+y Ÿ
alt+shift+u ª ª
alt+shift+i ï ï
alt+shift+o Œ
alt+shift+p ∏
alt+shift+^ Ô Ô
alt+shift+$ ¥ ¥
alt+shift+q À Ω
alt+shift+s ∑
alt+shift+d ∆
alt+shift+f ·
alt+shift+g fl
alt+shift+h Î Î
alt+shift+j Í Í
alt+shift+k Ë Ë
alt+shift+l | |
alt+shift+m Ó Ó
alt+shift+ù û ‰
alt+shift+` # #
alt+shift+< ≥
alt+shift+w ›
alt+shift+x ⁄
alt+shift+c ¢ ¢
alt+shift+v √
alt+shift+b ∫
alt+shift+n ~ ı
alt+shift+, ¿ ¿
alt+shift+; · •
alt+shift+: \ \
alt+shift+= ± ±

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

Since Daniel asked me for some feedback, here is my grain of salt.

In my experience, the keyboard layout on macs under Linux is perenially screwed
up, to the point of bearing little resemblance to what is printed on the keys.

Apple's french keymap makes creative use of Alt, Shift and Caps-Lock to provide
access to all kinds of useful characters that are not printed on the keys, like
pipe and backslash, in a reasonably intuitive way. In addition, the correct
third-level chooser on macintosh keyboards is Left-Alt, not Left-Win.

Also ,"Left-Win" is actually confusing to mac users, since the key does not bear
a Windows symbol, but a white Apple logo a "command" symbol.

I was not able to test with the latest live-cd (downloading). But I have a Hoary
install (not sure which one, the files on the ISO are dated March 3rd) and the
selected keyboard type was pc105 instead of macintosh, and even with a mac
keyboard type the layout does not match what's printed on the keys.

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

Created an attachment (id=1997)
screenshots of french mac layout on an ibook2 keyboard

A collection of pictures displaying the arrangement of the french keymap of an
iBook2 on MacOS X with various combinations of Shift, Alt, and Caps-Lock. Thats
_is_ the One True French Macintosh keymap, as it is what Mac users expect. And
there is a strong correlation between being an iBook user and being a Mac user.

I'm probably violating one of the click-wrap licenses by posting these
pictures, so you'd be very kind to remove all traces of this attachement when
the bug is closed.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

David: would the keymap linked to from here be useful? What's our best option
for Hoary? To use pc105 or macintosh? To use the standard 'fr' keymap or the
one linked to here?

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

(From update of attachment 1997)
this attachment is wrong, bears no resemblance to the actual keyboard

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello,

According to http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2005-April/007249.html,
It seems that this keymap wont be integrated before the the 7.0 release !!!
So, i think the problem should be temporary resolved by ubuntu.

David, you're images looks very strange ! And this is not what user expect on
ibook and powerbook.

Daniel, at least use macintosh ! I'm sure of it ! But, for fr_new, I'm sure to
use it only for ibook and powerbook G3 and G4. For other model, i « NEEDINFO » !

Thanks.

[David Allouche (ddaa)]

(In reply to comment #26)
> David, you're images looks very strange ! And this is not what user expect on
> ibook and powerbook.

Yeah. I screwed up. I usually use a dvorak keymap, and the images are an useless
mix of dvorak and azerty. That's why this bug attachement is marked obsolete.

I would like to redo them correctly but I have several ultra-urgent crunches
over my head and I'm having trouble scheduling between them.

If you could provide a similar set of screenshots, that would provide some hard
data for Daniel to assess the accuracy of the various keymaps.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello,

Thanks you david, I don't know how to do this screenshots. But think to you first :)

But, I talk by mails with Étienne Herlent <eherlent at linux-france.org>, the
actual maintaineur of this keymap. And, the fact is that the fr_new is not for
this or those keyboard, but for the NEW INPUT LAYER first shipped by at the
Linux Yellow Dog 2000 Q4. So you can safely integrate this keymap with new Linux
and X layout. So this new keymap is for new input layer and REPLACE actual
keymap. This keymap is usable with ADB ISO, ADB non-ISO, USB keyboard from apple
(and most other supported by the new input layer).

Imho, using this keymap for ubuntu is very safe.

Thanks everybody.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

*** Bug 15160 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello Everybody,

The XFree86 team has integrated this symbols map[1]. They juste replace the old
by the one. Whaou. I found this a bit speedy ! As Xorg do not seems to accept
this keymap before 7.0, i suggest that ubuntu ship it. fr_new mean fr_new input
layer, does ubuntu use the new input layers from linux for ppc. Yes. So, in
order not to be reasonable, just ship the fr_new as fr_new (not replacing), and
enable it by default.

Thanks guys.

[1] http://bugs.xfree86.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1574

[ds9 (stephane-lentz)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> Another example of french user using the fr_new keymap on ibook :
> http://twolife.free.fr/vrac/ibook/XF86Config-4 (just search fr_new).
> I found also this bug report in the bugs.debian.org :
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=234113 . Another french user
> use the fr_new keymap.
>
>....
This keymac is indeed needed for any Linux distribution supporting French ibooks.
On my ibook systems running Debian or Gentoo, I always have to install it manually.
That sucks. It should be available by default for easiness and help new users.
I plan to use ubuntu in the futur so I'll be interested in this being available
by default

[Jib (moramarth-deactivatedaccount)]

I work on Ubuntu over iBook. And I wish it's not the default setting too.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hello everybody,

This bug has been truly fixed upstream see
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2870

Regards.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

okay, so we'll get it when we pull down a new xk-c in dapper