Re: 9.0 bata2 & keymap

From: David Brodbeck <gull_at_gull.us>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:15:11 -0700
I don't think not asking the question is the right answer.  Asking
about the keyboard layout during installation is the right thing to
do; working with the wrong one is difficult and not everyone has a
standard US keyboard.

I think the problem is that the keymap names are kind of obscure,
making it hard for users who aren't already familiar with FreeBSD
internals to know which one to pick.  Many Linux installers ask for a
keymap during installation, but they give fairly clear names for the
keymaps like "US English 105-key", making it easy to pick one that's
likely to work.

When I installed FreeBSD-9.0-BETA it took me two tries to find a
layout that works because it's far from clear what will yield "normal"
behavior.  I tried the "United States of America Traditional UNIX
Workstation" one first (traditional!  It must be standard, right?) and
found I had no working Ctrl key.  Eventually I landed on "United
States of America ISO-8859-1", which worked, but I'm not sure it's
reasonable to expect a new user to know what "ISO-8859-1" is and
whether they have it.

Surely we can name these layouts a bit more clearly?  I think that
would solve most of the problem.  I would offer a patch but I'm the
wrong person to do it, since they make no sense to me. ;)
Received on Fri Sep 23 2011 - 16:41:38 UTC

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