How can I sort out Xephyr's keyboard mapping?

Question

When I start up Xephyr inside of X, my keyboard map becomes wonky mostly just for non-printing characters. I can't use arrow keys. According to xev, The down arrow gets mapped to Super_R. The up arrow is Print Screen. PgDown is mapped to "Menu". My keyboard works fine in the original X display (:0), but in the Xephyr subdisplay (:1), nothing else quite works right.

I don't have any funky xmodmap things going on in my main X display that I'm aware of. All I really do is setxkbmap -option ctrl:swapcaps.

Solution 1

I found Bug 19365 which solved my problem:

Starting Xnest / Xephyr with -kb.

Solution 2

The -kb option doesn't work in Ubuntu 10.04. Here's what worked for me:

Xephyr -keybd ephyr,,,xkbmodel=evdev -ac -screen 800x600 -br -reset -terminate :1

Solution 3

You can also run xkbcomp $DISPLAY :1 in X session in which Xephyr was started. This command will copy keyboard map from current server to your newly created. I use it like this:

Xephyr -screen 800x600 :1 > /dev/null &
sleep 2 && xkbcomp $DISPLAY :1
DISPLAY=":1" ./runcommand

Solution 4

setxkbmap -model evdev -print | xkbcomp :100 :200    

If you use Xephyr with xpra and you have incorrect keyboard map. If you see strange situation: Down key worked as enter (down arrow as break line), up arrow not working - use that command for set true xkb map.

:100 - Display number with control of xpra

:200 - Display number control of Xephyr

May be that command help, if you use x2go and mate desktop environment (if x2go settings keyboard on client turned off)

Solution 5

After more unsuccessful googling, man setxkbmap finally pointed me into an easier solution:

USING WITH xkbcomp

If you have an Xserver and a client shell running on different computers and XKB configuration files on those machines are different you can get problems specifying a keyboard map by model, layout, options names.[...] You can solve this problem by running the xkbcomp on the client side too.[..] For example, the command

setxkbmap us -print | xkbcomp - $DISPLAY

makes both steps run on the same (client) machine and loads a keyboard map into the server.

That is,

• launch Xephyr:

  Xephyr -ac -reset -screen 800x600 -retro :50 &
  

  (no need to provide keyboard info)

• and configure the new xsession:

  setxkbmap de -print | xkbcomp - :50
  

  (you need to know your keyboard layout)

Note: setxkbmap is your friend, and from version 1.2.0 the useful -query option is available to help you troubleshooting your keyboard (see the corresponding patch log).

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Comments

[Admin]

You're not using SSH, right? Or in other words: you're using the exact same keyboard and X server with Xephyr like you use without it? And any better results when using the older Xnest? I don't know how that knowledge will help you, but maybe it does. ;-)

[Admin]

Yep. no ssh. Same keyboard and server. I'll try Xnest.

[Admin]

Xnest did the same thing, but at least it pointed me to the solution.

[qedi]

That makes some other keys work, but not all. xev claims, for example that the keypad slash is XF86_Ungrab, not KP_Divide as it is defined in the xmodmap file I've dumped and used.

[Arjan]

And no more need for xmodmap either, I hope? Good find!

[Arjan]

(I think you can accept your own answer after 48 hours? Please come back to do so. Thanks!)

[Alexis Winters]

In this answer I indicate how to launch Xephyr to have it properly configured.

[Alexis Winters]

I found a better solution: see my other answer to this question.

[bwDraco]

Please explain what this code does—this isn't very helpful as it stands.

[Olaf Dietsche]

There's no need for all the empty commas, just list keyboard options as needed. In my case it is -keybd ephyr,xkbmodel=evdev,xkblayout='de(nodeadkeys)'