Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 21:18:45 +0800 From: Robert Storey <y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Emacs weirdness at console Message-ID: <20030519211845.3c614c69.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> In-Reply-To: <20030519081717.GS77354@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20030519153402.22ac5d71.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> <20030519081717.GS77354@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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On Mon, 19 May 2003 17:47:17 +0930 "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@FreeBSD.org> wrote: > On Monday, 19 May 2003 at 15:34:02 +0800, Robert Storey wrote: > > I'm a Linux refugee, and I confess to being new at FreeBSD. > > > > I've used Emacs a lot over the past few years under Linux. What I've > > noticed in FreeBSD is that Emacs barely works at the console, yet it > > works fine under X. > > Are you having other problems than the one you describe? Well, now that you ask... Is there a utility in FBSD to turn on/off num_lock? Linux has one called "setleds" but I don't see that in the ports collection. I was going to ask you how to set the keyboard key rate, but your suggestion below to look at the man page for kbdcontrol solved that one for me. I installed "most" (from the ports collection), a much more colorful pager for man pages than plain old "more." I figured out that I can use "most" as a pager by doing this: man -P most <command> The question is: how can I set "most" to be my default pager so I don't have to type "-P most"? I haven't yet found a FBSD equivalent to the Linux "Cryptoapi" program, which allows one to encrypt a partition. Does anything like this exist yet? I'm still looking for a way to share a partition (on the same hard drive) with Linux so I can exchange data - maybe that isn't possible. Doesn't seem that FreeBSD supports ext2, and Linux doesn't support UFS. As far as I know, the only way to exchange data is to use a second machine on the network. > > A crucial problem (in the console) is that the ALT key (or M- key in > > Emacs parlance) just doesn't work at all. > > The Meta (M-) key is not the Alt key. If you want to use the Alt key > as a Meta key, you need to tell the system to do so. I stand corrected. > > That's pretty major - without that key, about half the Emacs > > commands are inaccessible. > > No, that's not correct. Hit Esc first, then the character. That has > always worked. You're right again - except when you want to auto-repeat the command. Like for example, M-f, to move forward one word. I'll often hold down M-f and move forward 10 words or more. Trying doing that with ESC-f and it will drive you crazy. > > The CTRL key (C- ) does work as expected. Again, in X, all is well > > with Emacs. > > Try loading the emacs key bindings: > > # kbdcontrol -l /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/us.emacs.kbd Great, that worked like a charm. > You can get the system to load this keymap automatically at boot time > by putting the following line in your /etc/rc.conf: > > keymap="us.emacs.kbd" # keymap in /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/* (or > NO). This also worked wonders. > See the man page for kbdcontrol(1) for more details. Great, it has already proven useful! And mucho thanks Greg for all your help! regards, Robert
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