WSKBD(4)

NAME
wskbd - generic keyboard support in wscons

SYNOPSIS
wskbd* at ...

DESCRIPTION
The wskbd driver handles common tasks for keyboards within the wscons(4) framework. It is attached to the hardware specific keyboard drivers and provides their connection to “wsdisplay” devices and a character device interface.

The common keyboard support consists of:

•   Mapping from keycodes (defined by the specific keyboard driver) to keysyms (hardware independent, defined in /usr/include/dev/wscons/wsksymdef.h).

•   Handling of “compose” sequences. Characters commonly not present as separate keys on keyboards can be generated after either a special “compose” key is pressed or a “dead accent” character is used.

•   Certain translations, like turning an “ALT” modifier into an “ESC” prefix.

•   Automatic key repetition (“typematic”).

•   Parameter handling for “keyboard bells”.

•   Generation of “keyboard events” for use by X servers.

The wskbd driver provides a number of ioctl functions to control key maps and other parameters. These functions are accessible through the associated “wsdisplay” device as well. A complete list is in /usr/include/dev/wscons/wsconsio.h. The wsconsctl(8) utility allows access to key maps and other variables.

The console locator in the configuration line refers to the device's use as input part of the operating system console. A device specification containing a positive value here will only match if the device is in use as system console. (The console device selection in early system startup is not influenced.) This way, the console device can be connected to a known wskbd device instance.

The wskbd driver traps certain key sequences intended to perform special functions. The Ctrl+Alt+Esc sequence will initiate the ddb(4) kernel debugger if the “ddb.console” sysctl(8) variable is set. When attached to a wsdisplay(4) device, Ctrl+Alt+Fx switches virtual terminals and the Shift+PgUp and Shift+PgDn combinations provide scrollback functionality if the underlying hardware driver supports it. When audio devices are supported, keys Mute, VolumeUp and VolumeDown tweak mixer settings.

  Keyboard encodings
The following encodings are supported. Device drivers for legacy keyboard interfaces may only support a subset of these. However, generally, all encodings are supported by pckbd(4) and ukbd(4).
wsconsctl | define | language
user | KB_USER | User-defined
us | KB_US | English/US keyboard mapping (default)
uk | KB_UK | English/UK keyboard mapping
be | KB_BE | Belgian
br | KB_BR | Brazilian with
“dead accents”
cf | KB_CF | Canadian French
dk | KB_DK | Danish with
“dead accents”
nl | KB_NL | Dutch
ee | KB_EE | Estonian with
“dead accents”
fr | KB_FR | French
de | KB_DE | German QWERTZ with
“dead accents”
hu | KB_HU | Hungarian
is | KB_IS | Icelandic with
“dead accents”
it | KB_IT | Italian
jp | KB_JP | Japanese
la | KB_LA | Latin American Spanish
no | KB_NO | Norwegian with
“dead accents”
pl | KB_PL | Polish
pt | KB_PT | Portuguese
ru | KB_RU | Russian
es | KB_ES | Spanish
sv | KB_SV | Swedish with
“dead accents”
sf | KB_SF | Swiss French
sg | KB_SG | Swiss German
tr | KB_TR | Turkish (QWERTY) with
“dead accents”
ua | KB_UA | Ukrainian
us.declk | KB_US|KB_DECLK | English/US mapping for
DEC LK400-style keyboards with PC keyboard interface (e.g., LK461)
us.dvorak | KB_US|KB_DVORAK | English/US keyboard with
“Dvorak” layout
us.colemak | KB_US|KB_COLEMAK | English/US keyboard with
“Colemak” layout

The “.nodead” suffix (KB_NODEAD flag) can be applied to layouts with “dead accents” to switch them off.

The KB_US, KB_UK, KB_FR, KB_JP and KB_US|KB_DVORAK mappings can be modified to swap the left <Ctrl> and the <CapsLock> keys by the KB_SWAPCTRLCAPS variant bit or the “.swapctrlcaps” suffix.

The “.metaesc” suffix (KB_METAESC flag) option can be applied to any layout. If set, keys pressed together with the ALT modifier are prefixed by an ESC character. (Standard behaviour is to add 128 to the ASCII value.)

  Ioctls
The following ioctl(2) calls are provided by the wskbd driver or by devices which use it. Their definitions are found in <dev/wscons/wsconsio.h>.

WSKBDIO_GTYPE
    Get the keyboard type.

WSKBDIO_GETMODE
    Get the keyboard mode, 0 means translated through keyboard map, 1 means raw.

WSKBDIO_SETMODE
    Set the keyboard mode.

WSKBDIO_COMPLEXBELL, WSKBDIO_SETBELL, WSKBDIO_GETBELL, WSKBDIO_SETDEFAULTBELL, WSKBDIO_GETDEFAULTBELL (struct wskbd_bell_data)
    Get and set keyboard bell settings.

WSKBDIO_SETKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_GETKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_SETDEFAULTKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_GETDEFAULTKEYREPEAT (struct wskbd_keyrepeat_data)
    Get and set keyboard autorepeat settings.

WSKBDIO_SETLEDS, WSKBDIO_GETLEDS (int)
    Get and set keyboard LED settings.

WSKBDIO_GETMAP, WSKBDIO_SETMAP (struct wskbd_map_data)
    Get and set keyboard keymapping settings.

WSKBDIO_GETBACKLIGHT, WSKBDIO_SETBACKLIGHT (struct wskbd_backlight)
    Get and set keyboard backlight

WSKBDIO_GETENCODING, WSKBDIO_SETENCODING (kbd_t)
    Get and set keyboard encoding settings.

FILES
/dev/wskbd*
/usr/include/dev/wscons/wsksymdef.h
/usr/include/dev/wscons/wsconsio.h

SEE ALSO
akbd(4), comkbd(4), hilkbd(4), intro(4), pckbd(4), ukbd(4), wscons(4), wsmux(4), zskbd(4), wsconsctl(8)