I use the XF86Config file to set dvorak mode with XFree86 3.3. Here are the
relevant lines from the keyboard section in /etc/X11/XF86Config:
Section "Keyboard"
Protocol "Standard"
AutoRepeat 500 30
XkbModel "pc102"
XkbLayout "dvorak"
XkbKeymap "xfree86(us)"
EndSection
If you want to switch back to qwerty on occasion (for example, someone needs
to do something briefly on your machine) you can try something like this in
your ~/.bashrc:
function aoeu() { if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ]; then setxkbmap -layout us; else
loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/us-latin1.kmap.gz; fi; }
function asdf() { if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ]; then setxkbmap -layout dvorak; else
loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.kmap.gz; fi; }
My initial thought was that 'setxkbmap' was failing because you didn't use
the -layout switch, but 'setxkbmap [dvorak|us]' works fine here. Sorry I
can't be of more help. I know that trying to hunt down keyboard problems in
X11 is a real pain.
On Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 12:02:07AM -0600, Adrian Kubala wrote:
> I run unstable;
>
> I've seen a few debian-related docs which imply that 'setxkbmap dvorak' and
> 'setxkbmap us' should work, but both give me an 'Error loading new keyboard
> description.'
>
> A search for dvorak keymaps for x turns up one in the gnome-applets package,
> and one in the kbd package, neither of which look like they'll make setxkbd
> work. I'd like to use setxkbd rather than xmodmap and some file I dig up
> somewhere, or at least know why I can't.
>
> Is this an unstable-broken thing? (I didn't see any files that looked useful
> in stable though). Anybody know how to set up dvorak 'properly' in debian?
>
> - Adrian
