Subject: bug#40273: installer: No way to input Latin characters with non-Latin keyboard layouts

From: "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 19:11:13 +0200

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 01:35:29PM +0200, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
> In the installer, the keyboard layout is handled by KMSCON. It means
> that running setxkbmap or loadkeys commands won't help. As KMSCON only
> supports static keyboard layout setting at start time, I had to patch it
> dirty (see kmscon-runtime-keymap-switch.patch). With this patch, it is
> possible to write keyboard model, layout and variant to the file pointed
> by KEYMAP_UPDATE environment variable, and have the keyboard layout
> updated (see kmscon-update-keymap).
> 
> Mathieu

Thank you for the information.  The attached patch to Guix enables
Alt+Shift toggling of the layout (it is too hacky, and it is always
QWERTY layout!).  But it is possible.

Regards,
Florian
diff --git a/gnu/local.mk b/gnu/local.mk
index 26eb8f7b09..6c50d2d352 100644
--- a/gnu/local.mk
+++ b/gnu/local.mk
@@ -1074,6 +1074,7 @@ dist_patch_DATA =						\
   %D%/packages/patches/kio-search-smbd-on-PATH.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/kmail-Fix-missing-link-libraries.patch \
   %D%/packages/patches/kmod-module-directory.patch		\
+  %D%/packages/patches/kmscon-test.patch	\
   %D%/packages/patches/kmscon-runtime-keymap-switch.patch	\
   %D%/packages/patches/kpackage-allow-external-paths.patch	\
   %D%/packages/patches/kmplayer-aarch64.patch			\
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/kmscon-test.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/kmscon-test.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..aeeebe3c09
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gnu/packages/patches/kmscon-test.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+diff -ur a/src/uterm_input_uxkb.c b/src/uterm_input_uxkb.c
+--- a/src/uterm_input_uxkb.c	1970-01-01 01:00:00.000000000 +0100
++++ b/src/uterm_input_uxkb.c	2020-03-30 18:27:40.880000000 +0200
+@@ -215,7 +215,10 @@
+ 
+ 	llog_info(dev->input, "HANDLER CALLED %s|%s|%s\n",
+ 		  model, layout, variant);
+-	uxkb_desc_init(dev->input, model, layout, variant, NULL, NULL);
++        int end_of_layout;
++        for (end_of_layout=0; layout[end_of_layout]; end_of_layout++);
++        memcpy (layout+end_of_layout, (void *)",us", 4);
++	uxkb_desc_init(dev->input, model, layout, variant, "grp:alt_shift_toggle", NULL);
+ 
+ 	dev->state = xkb_state_new(dev->input->keymap);
+ 	if (!dev->state) {
diff --git a/gnu/packages/terminals.scm b/gnu/packages/terminals.scm
index 9cb004e36a..9af293ab6d 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/terminals.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/terminals.scm
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ compatibility to existing emulators like xterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, etc.")
                  (base32
                   "0q62kjsvy2iwy8adfiygx2bfwlh83rphgxbis95ycspqidg9py87"))
                 (patches
-                 (search-patches "kmscon-runtime-keymap-switch.patch"))
+                 (search-patches "kmscon-runtime-keymap-switch.patch" "kmscon-test.patch"))
                 (modules '((guix build utils)))
                 (file-name (git-file-name name version))))
       (build-system gnu-build-system)