Hebrew FAQ

[Meir Kriheli]

Aharon Schkolnik wrote:
> On Tuesday 24 March 2009, Meir Kriheli wrote:
>> Aharon Schkolnik wrote:
>>> On Tuesday 24 March 2009, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>>>> Aharon Schkolnik <aschkolnik at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> Actually, I meant to ask about setting up Hebrew using xorg.conf,
>>>> Modern systems don't have xorg.conf - Xorg probes the system on
>>>> startup, generates the necessary parameters, and "just works". I have
>>>> 2 Fedora 10 computers with different video cards, etc. - neither has
>>>> an xorg.conf.
>>> Yes, you're right, but if you want to set up Hebrew keyboard at the X
>>> level, you need a xorg.conf file. That's how I have done it in the past.
>> Not if you're using Xorg's input hotplugging, hal is responsible for
>> that, without the need for xorg.conf. 
> 
> Very interesting !
> How did you generate fdi file ?
> 

You should get a template with hal which should be copied to
/etc/hal/fdi/policy and customized. On ArchLinux and Debian the template
location is /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi .


More templates are located under /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/ in case
you'll need to customize other input devices (e.g: synaptics).

>> Here's my
>> /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi:
>>
>> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
>> <deviceinfo version="0.2">
>>   <device>
>>     <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keymap">
>>       <append key="info.callouts.add"
>> type="strlist">hal-setup-keymap</append>
>>     </match>
>>
>>     <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
>>       <merge key="input.xkb.rules" type="string">xorg</merge>
>>
>>       <!-- If we're using Linux, we use evdev by default (falling back to
>>            keyboard otherwise). -->
>>       <merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">keyboard</merge>
>>       <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name"
>>              string="Linux">
>>         <merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">evdev</merge>
>>       </match>
>>
>>       <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">us,il</merge>
>>       <merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">,lyx</merge>
>>       <merge key="input.xkb.options"
>> type="string">grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle</merge>
>>     </match>
>>   </device>
>> </deviceinfo>
>>
>>>> You can generate the file using Xorg --configure or sth of the kind,
>>>> and if you have it Xorg will use it. I did not feel the need.
>>> I did that, but wasn't able to get the Hebrew keyboard stuff working.

Cheers
--
Meir Kriheli