please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

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Ondo

please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by Ondo »

The Apple aluminium keyboards have been around for many years, probably because Apple got them right.
These keyboards are correctly identified during Linux Mint installation so you happily click OK, but the identification is then ignored and you get something which is more or less a PC-keyboard. That has left me puzzled, but after reading tons of forum posts on the topic I realize two things:

1) It is a widespread problem
2) there are two camps: those who want the key layout to be as PC-like as possible, and those who want the Apple keyboard to stick to what it is and precisely obey what is written on the keys


The standard Linux Mint installer assumes the first camp, and has no offerings to the other.
Needless to say I belong to the second camp: I bought the Apple keyboard on purpose and want it behave as such. Despite reading many forum posts and experimenting it remains beyond me to remap all keys and even harder to make sure that it has systemwide effect under the Linux Mint.

Therefore, please teach the installer to this for the user,

thanks,

Ondo
MintBean

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by MintBean »

Man that's a shame. Just about to install on a Mac for a friend. Presumably it can be reconfigured somehow even if it's a bit of work?
phd21
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Posts: 10103
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Location: Florida

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by phd21 »

Hi "Ondo",

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Can you be more specific as to which keyboard you have?

Usually in any edition of Linux Mint, you can choose different keyboard layouts through the "input devices" or "keyboard" options, and you can assign the keys any way you want...

Apple Keyboard
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Apple_Keyboard


Hope this helps ...
Keyboard_Layouts1.jpg
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
Ondo

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by Ondo »

Dear PhD21,
Thanks that sounds very promising. I want to attach a file for you, but even a 231 kb fileyields a "file too big" error message. I'll try from my other computer tomorrow.
I have a high- and low-powered Linux Mint machine running 17.3 and Sarah respectively. The machine running Sarah has Kernel 4.4.0-77-generic x86_64. Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28).
More info to follow tomorrow.

Ondo
MintBean

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by MintBean »

I tried autodetect during a recent install and it didn't work, however selecting 'Mac Keyboard' or whatever it was manually seems to work perfectly.
Ondo

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by Ondo »

Dear PhD21

I have put the pictures showing the desired key layout here:

Image

And then the two commandline things:

Code: Select all

System: Kernel: 4.8.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28) Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya
Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P9X79 v: Rev 1.xx
           Bios: American Megatrends v: 4608 date: 12/24/2013
CPU:       Hexa core Intel Core i7-4930K (-HT-MCP-) cache: 12288 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 40825
           clock speeds: max: 3900 MHz 1: 1211 MHz 2: 1275 MHz 3: 1565 MHz
           4: 1255 MHz 5: 1297 MHz 6: 1299 MHz 7: 1212 MHz 8: 1279 MHz
           9: 1210 MHz 10: 1432 MHz 11: 1218 MHz 12: 1312 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1280x1024@60.02hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVA8
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 12.0.6 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 NVIDIA High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
           Card-2 Intel C600/X79 series High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.8.0-53-generic
Network:   Card: Intel 82579V Gigabit Network Connection
           driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: f040 bus-ID: 00:19.0
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2528.0GB (23.1% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST2000DM001 size: 2000.4GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Samsung_SSD_840 size: 512.1GB
           ID-3: USB /dev/sdc model: DataTraveler_2.0 size: 15.5GB
           Optical: /dev/sr0 model: ATAPI iHAS124   W
           rev: HL0G dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd,dvdrw
           Features: speed: 125x multisession: yes
           audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
Partition: ID-1: / size: 406G used: 96G (25%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 68.65GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb3
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 35.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 53.0
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 280 Uptime: 19 days Memory: 4128.6/64368.9MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35 
lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 05ac:020c Apple, Inc. Extended Keyboard [Mitsumi]
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 05ac:1003 Apple, Inc. Hub in Pro Keyboard [Mitsumi, A1048]
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 015: ID 05ac:0304 Apple, Inc. Mighty Mouse [Mitsumi, M1152]
Bus 005 Device 014: ID 05ac:0221 Apple, Inc. Aluminum Keyboard (ISO)
Bus 005 Device 013: ID 05ac:1006 Apple, Inc. Hub in Aluminum Keyboard
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0930:6544 Toshiba Corp. TransMemory-Mini / Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 Stick (2GB)
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Last edited by Moem on Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added the [rimg] tags for remote images, and the [code] tags to make output easier to read.
phd21
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 10103
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm
Location: Florida

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by phd21 »

Hi "Ondo",

I would recommend doing what "mintbean" just tried, go into your XFCE settings and try various Mac keyboards and see if one works the way you want. FYI: My screenshots are from Linux Mint KDE.

I have no way of testing this for you, my ancient underpowered computer does not have enough room to install and test Xfce, nor do I have an extra USB flash drive stick to install it there, and I do not have any Mac computer or keyboard hardware.

I do not see anything wrong with the results of the "inxi -Fxzd" console terminal command, except that you are not using the correct video driver for your Nvidia GeForce 210, and your Processor is not running in performance mode, and both of these issues have nothing to do with your keyboard.

NVIDIA: how to install the latest video card drivers
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/12

Hope this helps ...
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
Ondo

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by Ondo »

Dear PhD21,

Sorry, I have tried all imaginable variations over the keyboard settings. ALL of them completely ignore what is printed on the keys: I get a PC-keyboard no matter what. I really wish that it could be addressed at the system level.
But I dearly want to learn something: You wrote that I could map any key to what I want. How do I do that? For example, how do I move the $-sign to the key just below the esc key? And how do I map alt M to give the µ character?

Thanks,

Ondo
phd21
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 10103
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:42 pm
Location: Florida

Re: please support the Apple aluminium keyboards

Post by phd21 »

Hi Ondo,

A simple, humble but comprehensive guide to XKB for linux
https://medium.com/@damko/a-simple-humb ... 1ad5e13450

XKeyCaps
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=70788.0

How to remap keys in Linux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ozwlnQKbQ

Extra keyboard keys
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ex ... board_keys

Keyboard configuration in console
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke ... in_console


Linux keyboard text symbols: Compose key shortcuts
https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/

Keyboard Entry of Polytonic Greek and Biblical Hebrew in GNU/Linux (2017)
https://frame-poythress.org/keyboard-en ... inux-2014/


Character map apps: look for Character map -> GNOME's Gucharmap, KDE's KCharSelect, etc...


Hope this helps ...
Phd21: Mint 20 Cinnamon & xKDE (Mint Xfce + Kubuntu KDE) & KDE Neon 64-bit (new based on Ubuntu 20.04) Awesome OS's, Dell Inspiron I5 7000 (7573) 2 in 1 touch screen, Dell OptiPlex 780 Core2Duo E8400 3GHz,4gb Ram, Intel 4 Graphics.
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