[Bug 4857] New: Angstrom lacks support for switching between multiple keyboard layouts (physical keyboards)

[bugzilla-daemon at amethyst.openembedded.net]

http://bugs.openembedded.net/show_bug.cgi?id=4857

           Summary: Angstrom lacks support for switching between multiple
                    keyboard layouts (physical keyboards)
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: Openembedded
           Version: Angstrom 2007.12
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: minor
          Priority: P3
         Component: Distributions
        AssignedTo: openembedded-issues at lists.openembedded.org
        ReportedBy: sdiconov at mail.ru


Created an attachment (id=13068)
 --> (http://bugs.openembedded.net/attachment.cgi?id=13068)
Example Russian photentic keyboard for Zaurus and XKB

I use a Zaurus C1000 (Akita) and want to switch from Cacko to Angstrom to avoid
problems of ever more outdated Qtopia environment.

I tried to install the stable Angstrom 2007.12 and several unstable images but
I am forced to look for something else because Angstrom does not provide any
support for input of non-latin (e.g. Russian) text using the physical keyboard
offered by Zauruses and N810. 

I installed all locale related packages including glibc and gconv modules. It
is possible to select the Russian locale at the login screen. There are fonts
and capabilities to display Cyrillic text correctly and some portions of the
UI, even have translations. 

However, I am still unable to key in text and work in Angstrom. The "xkbd"
virtual keyboard provides a Russian layout, but it is useless for regualr or
prolonged typing. It is important to have the support for multiple keyboard
layouts and switching them by a hotkey. 

A normal scenario for Russian environment is to type in Cyrillic, then press a
hotkey (e.g. Fn+Shift) to switch to Latin for shell commands or URLs, then
press the same hotkey again to revert to the Cyrillic script. This is normally
accomplished by the XKB extension of the X-server. Additionally a flag icon or
a language code in the taskbar is needed to indicate the currently selected
language. A number of applets and small programmes exist to support keyboard
switching in Linux (e.g. gswitchit for GNOME and xxkb for lean WMs).  

Unfortunately, Angstrom does not provide such capabilities, which restricts its
user and testing base. 


Please, turn on the XKB extension support and include XKB keyboard layouts in
the distribution.

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