X11_Keyboard/Xorg_7.3

XOrg Index

Configuration

HIDevices

Fonts

Video Cards

Monitors

The way, how input devices are configured in Xorg 7.3 changed a lot. Xorg is pushing the generic input driver evdev (making the keyboard and mouse driver obsolete), which supports all keys and buttons of multimedia input devices, and the use of HAL to provide input hotplugging.

Basic Setup

Kernel Setup

Device Drivers  --->
    Input device support  --->
        <*>   Event interface
         If you have an AT (all laptops) or PS/2 keyboard
        -*-   Keyboards  --->
              <*>   AT keyboard
      If you have an USB keyboard
    [*] HID Devices  --->
        -*-   Generic HID support
        <*>   USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support

Xorg Setup

First add this line to your /etc/make.conf:

INPUT_DEVICES="... evdev ...."

Also check with emerge --info | grep hal, that the hal USE flag is enabled. Then install Xorg:

# emerge --ask --verbose xorg-x11

or update your existing system:

# emerge -uDNva world

Now follow the Xorg guide to complete the setup and to start the X server.

Advanced Topics

Available Options

Today the input devices get configurated by HAL. The use of the xorg.conf for input configuration is deprecated. To add an option, you have to create a .fdi file. Here an example how to enable a german keyboard layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keyboard">
      <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">de</merge>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

You can set all other options (rules, model, variant) like this. Just add another <merge key="input.xkb.Your Option" type="string">Your Value</merge> line. For more informations about HAL and .fdi files, see the HAL article.

For more options and their meanings, see the installed man page:

man evdev

Function and Multimedia keys

See this guide.