All stuff needed for russification of the Linux console is contained
in the kbd package. The package is accessible at sunsite.unc.edu or
tsx-11.mit.edu. Usually, that package is already installed (it is a
standard part of at least Slackware distribution).
To setup the Cyrillic stuff, one should do three things:
setfont program. The fonts files are placed in
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts.
NOTE: Never run the setfont program under X or it will hang
your system. This is because it works with low-level video card calls
which X doesn't like.
mapscrn program and the
/usr/lib/kbd/consoletrans/koi2alt file.
loadkeys
program.
The following is an example of a script which sets up the Cyrillic mode for console:
#!/bin/bash # # load cyrillic defs for console # # *** NEVER TRY IT UNDER X!!! *** loadkeys /usr/lib/kbd/keytables/ru.map setfont /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/Cyr_a8x16 mapscrn /usr/lib/kbd/consoletrans/koi2alt echo -ne 'ESC(K' # use the REAL ESCAPE character here ! echo "Use the right Ctrl key to switch the mode..."
Like the console mode, the X environment also requires some setup. This involves setting up the input mode and the X fonts. Both are being discussed below.
First of all, you have to obtain the fonts collection having the Cyrillic glyphs at the appropriate places.
There is a number of such fonts on the net. The author's favorite one
is the collection VakuFonts created by Serge Vakulenko
(vak@cronyx.ru). It can be found in the collection of
cyrillic stuff for the X Window System where you can find many
useful packages for X.
Note: Apparently, that package is included to the XFree86 version 3.1.2 as well as to the most recent public patch for the X11 Release 6. Unfortunately, the author hasn't had a chance to check it yet.
Usually the X fonts are distributed in the BDF format which is
actually the textual font description. You should compile the fonts to
the PCF format using the bdftopcf command:
bdftopcf -o name.pcf name.bdf
It is also possible to compress the compiled font using the
compress program (I am not sure about the gzip support).
Now you should do three things to set everything up:
cd to it and
run:
mkfontdir .
fonts.dir.
fonts.alias) then append it's contents to the fonts' aliases file in
the directory containing the fonts.
xinitrc file (either local or global one):
xset +fp directory_with_fonts
xset fp rehash
After you have made the settings above, you can check the availability of the new fonts by running the following command:
xfd -fn fontname
This should show the table of characters of the specified font.
The switching between the different input translations is set up by
the xmodmap program. This program allows customization of codes
emitted by various characters and their combinations. It sets the
things up based on the file containing the translation table, usually
~/.Xmodmap.
The following is a simplified description of input customization. If you want to do more sophisticated tricks, refer to the xmodmap(1) or, even better, wait for the X11 Release 7 which will address the current input problems.
In our case, the translation table should define two things:
This is basically a sequence of directives which assign the certain keysyms to a specified keycodes. The general syntax is the following:
keycodecode=sym1 sym2 sym3 sym4
where code is the numerical code of the given key on the keyboard
(refer to the standard table for your system. In my case it is stored
in the file /usr/lib/X11/etc/xmodmap.std). The syms
define the keysyms emitted by that key in different
conditions. Sym1 is the keysym emitted by the key in a regular
state, sym2 corresponds the key
in shifted state (usually when Shift is held down). Sym3
and sym4 define the keysyms emitted when the Mode_switch is
active for the normal and shifted states respectively (group 2,
according the X Protocol Specification). In our case,
the active Mode_switch corresponds to the Cyrillic input mode.
These should be either hexadecimal codes or the symbolic constants
from /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h (without leading "XK_").
Thus, if we wanted the key corresponding to the Latin 'a' generate the Russian 'a' in the alternative mode, we would write the following:
keycode 38 = a A 0xC1 0xE1
The reader might be curious why I haven't used the Cyrillic_a and
Cyrillic_A constants respectively. The answer is that it didn't
work for me. I am not very familiar with the guts of the X Window
System specification, but I have the following explanation. The
symbolic constants above have the values 0x6C1 and 0x6E1
respectively. This means that in really multi-lingual environment they
could be successfully used without overlapping with any other
character set. However the KOI-8 standard is not well suited for such
environment. Thus, since we want to retain compatible with the past,
we will violate the rules of multi-lingual support in the X Window
System.
The following is a table for the most popular russian JCUKEN keyboard
layout (these tables are derived from the ones in the VakuFonts
package):
keysym 4 = 4 dollar 4 quotedbl keysym 5 = 5 percent 5 colon keysym 6 = 6 asciicircum 6 comma keysym 7 = 7 ampersand 7 period keysym q = q Q 0xCA 0xEA keysym w = w W 0xC3 0xE3 keysym e = e E 0xD5 0xF5 keysym r = r R 0xCB 0xEB keysym t = t T 0xC5 0xE5 keysym y = y Y 0xCE 0xEE keysym u = u U 0xC7 0xE7 keysym i = i I 0xDB 0xFB keysym o = o O 0xDD 0xFD keysym p = p P 0xDA 0xFA keysym bracketleft = bracketleft braceleft 0xC8 0xE8 keysym bracketright = bracketright braceright 0xDF 0xFF keysym a = a A 0xC6 0xE6 keysym s = s S 0xD9 0xF9 keysym d = d D 0xD7 0xF7 keysym f = f F 0xC1 0xE1 keysym g = g G 0xD0 0xF0 keysym h = h H 0xD2 0xF2 keysym j = j J 0xCF 0xEF keysym k = k K 0xCC 0xEC keysym l = l L 0xC4 0xE4 keysym semicolon = semicolon colon 0xD6 0xF6 keysym apostrophe = apostrophe quotedbl 0xDC 0xFC keysym grave = grave asciitilde 0xA3 0xB3 keysym z = z Z 0xD1 0xF1 keysym x = x X 0xDE 0xFE keysym c = c C 0xD3 0xF3 keysym v = v V 0xCD 0xED keysym b = b B 0xC9 0xE9 keysym n = n N 0xD4 0xF4 keysym m = m M 0xD8 0xF8 keysym comma = comma less 0xC2 0xE2 keysym period = period greater 0xC0 0xE0
Also, for those using the russian YAWERTY layout, I've included the following table:
keysym q = q Q 0xD1 0xF1 keysym w = w W 0xD7 0xF7 keysym e = e E 0xC5 0xE5 keysym r = r R 0xD2 0xF2 keysym t = t T 0xD4 0xF4 keysym y = y Y 0xD9 0xF9 keysym u = u U 0xD5 0xF5 keysym i = i I 0xC9 0xE9 keysym o = o O 0xCF 0xEF keysym p = p P 0xD0 0xF0 keysym bracketleft = bracketleft braceleft 0xDB 0xFB keysym bracketright = bracketright braceright 0xDD 0xFD keysym a = a A 0xC1 0xE1 keysym s = s S 0xD3 0xF3 keysym d = d D 0xC4 0xE4 keysym f = f F 0xC6 0xE6 keysym g = g G 0xC7 0xE7 keysym h = h H 0xC8 0xE8 keysym j = j J 0xCA 0xEA keysym k = k K 0xCB 0xEB keysym l = l L 0xCC 0xEC keysym z = z Z 0xDA 0xFA keysym x = x X 0xD8 0xF8 keysym c = c C 0xC3 0xE3 keysym v = v V 0xD6 0xF6 keysym b = b B 0xC2 0xE2 keysym n = n N 0xCE 0xEE keysym m = m M 0xCD 0xED keysym backslash = backslash bar 0xDC 0xFC keysym grave = grave asciitilde 0xC0 0xE0 keysym equal = equal plus 0xDE 0xFE keysym 3 = 3 numbersign 3 0xDF keysym 4 = 4 dollar 4 0xFF
This is basically the trickiest part of the X Cyrillic setup. You should define the conditions in which the current mode is switched between the regular and the Cyrillic one.
There are two ways to achieve that in Linux. One is XFree86-specific, while the other is more general (well, not too much, as I'll show below).
The XFree86-specific way is the following. There are two virtual
actions which can be assigned to the keys in the XF86Config file:
ModeShift which changes to the mode alternative to the regular
one without locking, and ModeLock
which does the same but with locking. In the first case the keys will
emit the alternative keysyms only when the key generating the
ModeShift is held down, whereas in the latter case the user needs
to press the key generating the ModeLock keysym only once and the
keyboard will be generating the alternative keysyms until that key is
pressed for a second time. You should assign the ModeShift and
ModeLock keysyms to the keys you want to work the mode switches.
Thus, if one wants to assign the ModeShift action to the right
Alt key, she should place the following directive in her XF86Config:
RightAlt ModeShift
Similarly, if the action required was ModeLock, the directive would be:
RightAlt ModeLock
See the XF86Config(4/5) for more details.
The other way is, again, to use the xmodmap utility. This is much
more tricky. Basically what you should do is:
Mode_switch keysym to some key, andMode_switch to some spare modifier mapNow the key to which the ModeShift is assigned will act as a mode
switch. This means that while it is held down, the keyboard is in
alternative mode.
Moreover, if you add a lockable key to that modifier's map, this key will lock the alternative mode.
Note: There are some problems however. Serge Vakulenko
(vak@cronyx.com) pointed out that the different X Server
implementations may have different rules of assignments the mode
switches (like, for example, some servers restrict the set of the keys
which may work in toggle mode to, say, CapsLock, NumLock,
and ScrollLock). Hopefully, this is a subject to change in the
next release of the X Window System. For more details, see the X
Protocol specification.
Let's see an example. Suppose, one wants to use the right Alt as a
mode switch and the ScrollLock as as a mode lock. First of all, one
should check the default modifiers' map. This is accomplished by
running the xmodmap without arguments:
$ xmodmap
xmodmap: up to 2 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):
shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e)
lock Caps_Lock (0x42)
control Control_L (0x25)
mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_R (0x71)
mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3
mod4
mod5
According to the above, the plan of attack is the following:
Alt_R key from the mod1 mapMode_switch keysym to the Alt_R keyScroll_Lock keysym to the keycode 78 (the code
of the actual ScrollLock)Mode_switch to the spare (mod3) map, andScroll_Lock keysym to the mod3 mapThus, here is the solution:
remove mod1 = Alt_R keysym Alt_R = Mode_switch keycode 78 = Scroll_Lock add mod3 = Mode_switch add mod3 = Scroll_Lock
If you use the latter solution, you may combine both the table and the
mode directives in your ~/.Xmodmap file.
Such files are generally supplied with the various X Cyrillic stuff packages. The good example is the tables in the perfect package by Serge Vakulenko described above.
Once you have such file containing the table, you should run the command:
xmodmap filename
every time you start X. Modify your .xinitrc file to perform
it. NOTE: your .xinitrc can already contain the code to run the
xmodmap over your local table if the one exists.
The table distributed with the Serge's Vakulenko package didn't work for the author. The following patch fixed the problem:
diff -u --new-file jcuken.xmm jcuken.xmm.mod --- jcuken.xmm Mon May 20 09:11:36 1991 +++ jcuken.xmm.mod Sun Aug 13 15:44:06 1995 @@ -2,6 +2,8 @@ ! Cyrillic keyboard mapping table. ! Produced by Serge Vakulenko, <vak@kiae.su>, Moscow. ! +! Modified by Alexander L. Belikoff (abel@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il), 1995 +! ! Russian JCUKENG keyboard layout implemented. ! Cyrillic characters are entered in koi8 encoding. ! @@ -10,7 +12,9 @@ ! Use CapsLock as rus/lat switch key. remove lock = Caps_Lock -add mod2 = Caps_Lock +keysym Caps_Lock = Mode_switch +add mod2 = Mode_switch +add lock = Mode_switch ! Key Base Shift Caps ShiftCaps !------------------------------------------------------------------------
This allowed me to use the Caps Lock key to switch between normal and Cyrillic input modes.