linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add specific vt input's key map

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Message-ID: <20180912170351.GB1119@voidbox.localdomain>
Date:   Wed, 12 Sep 2018 19:03:51 +0200
From:   Remi Pommarel <repk@...plefau.lt>
To:     Alan Cox <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Jiri Slaby <jslaby@...e.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Elie Roudninski <xademax@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] Add specific vt input's key map

On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 03:35:19PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Sep 2018 22:23:55 +0200
> Remi Pommarel <repk@...plefau.lt> wrote:
> 
> > This patchset adds a way to have a specific keyboard config (i.e.
> > keycode to keysym map) for a vt attached input.
> 
> Who actually needs this given that you can't even render most
> international symbols in text mode and X and friends already deal with
> mapping of keyboards at this degree of fine-ness and even more so ?

Let say you share one computer among people used to different keyboard
layouts, so you have plugged in one keyboard for each of those people.
Let say you have encrypted your disk with a long passphrase, the one
that boots up the computer has to enter it. It could be annoying to
learn another layout just to enter a passphrase to boot. This allows to
set an udev rule in initrd to use a different layout per keyboard so
every people using this computer can use their favorite layout to enter
the passphrase.

I am in such a situation and so is @Elie.

I also don't start X server at boot time (or sometimes I switch to a linux
VT) it is not very convenient for me to switch layout to enter my password,
or even to type "startx".

I do agree that it is not an absolute must-have or shiny feature, it is
just a convenient one, at least for me.

-- 
Remi