Gentoo: Colemak keymap support
Colemak is my new keymap of choice. Luckily, Gentoo Linux supports it well. Unlike some of the crazy instructions people have posted out there, you only need to edit 2 files to convert your console and Xorg server. Note, I’m taking the time to write this because I couldn’t find easy instructions out there…
% cat /etc/conf.d/keymaps
# Use keymap to specify the default console keymap. There is a complete tree
# of keymaps in /usr/share/keymaps to choose from.
keymap="en-latin9"
<...>
% cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-keyboard.conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "keyboard-all"
Option "XkbVariant" "colemak"
EndSection
Two questions:
1. When you have to use someone else’s computer or a public machine, do you have any trouble typing in qwerty now?
2. Most of the keyboard shortcuts we use are not longer associated with the actual letter name, and instead are muscle memory of how the fingers move when we want the “save” action, for example. Do you find yourself having trouble with those sorts of things?
Thanks,
Loof
1) Nope, colemak and qwerty are very similar. My phone is still qwerty for example. Albeit, my qwerty WPM dropped mostly due to error rate increasing.
2) Yea, muscle memory wins when not typing words still.
I’ve been considering this for a long time but after the pain and anguish I went through in switching to Dvorak, I don’t think I could go through it again. I miss those keyboard shortcuts though. Thanks for the tip.
Hm… How about going to keyboard preferences (in gnome2 for sure) and changing a layout?
It can’t be simpler then that.
Well… why tie your configuration to a DE? Plus, that doesn’t change your layout for the console or login (gdm, kdm, slim, et al).