Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Paravirt framebuffer backend tools [2/5]

[Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@xxxxxxx>]

Steven Smith wrote:
>> If the SDL viewer is using X11 configured with french keyboard, and the 
>> virtual
>> machine is configured with US keyboard, the used keymap will be the US one. 
>> So
>> when I press 'A' on my keyboard I will have 'Q'.
> That kind of sucks.

There is no way around that.

> Not being able to produce every character sucks
> more, but having to configure the keymap in every VM isn't much
> better.

For sane i18n kbd support some translation must be done.

Make the guest think he has an US keyboard and do the translation on the
host isn't going to work.  An US keyboard hasn't an 'Ä' key for example,
so you wouldn't be able to type that character.  Also some characters
are arranged in a different way, for example on a us keyboard you have
';' and ':' sharing one key, whereas on a german one ';' lives together
with ','.  That isn't going to work with host-side translation too.

Thus we *must* do the translation in the guest.  And we must do it in
the guest *only*, otherwise we'll end up with the translation happening
twice which becomes even more messy.

Sending scancodes not keysyms is the only solution to that problem.  Really.

cheers,
  Gerd

-- 
Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@xxxxxxx>

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