KBD_MODE(1)

💖 KBD_MODE ✨

okay bestie, so this one is literally about your keyboard's whole personality — whether it's yelling in raw bytes, speaking scancodes, or being a cute little UTF-8 girlie. it lives in the General Commands Manual section, and it's here to report or set the keyboard mode. that's the whole vibe. 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kbd_mode [ -a | -u | -k | -s | -d ] [ -f ] [ -C CONSOLE ]

like, give it no args and it just tells you what's up. give it args and it starts changing things. 🙈

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea: if you run kbd_mode with no argument at all, it just prints the current keyboard mode, which is gonna be one of RAW, MEDIUMRAW or XLATE. no drama, just facts. ✨

but the second you start throwing options at it, you can switch the keyboard mode of the current console, or of a console you specifically point at. that's it, that's the whole job. 💅

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• -a, --ascii — sets ASCII mode, aka XLATE. the classic. the icon.
• -k, --keycode — sets keycode mode, aka MEDIUMRAW.
• -s, --scancode — sets scancode mode, aka RAW.
• -u, --unicode — sets UTF-8 mode, aka UNICODE. unicode girlies rise 🫶
• -d, --disable — sets Disable mode, aka OFF.
• -f, --force — switches the mode even if it makes the keyboard unusable. yeah. bestie. this one is the "i know what i'm doing (i do not)" flag. 💀
• -C, --console=DEV — the console device to be used. like, which console, queen?

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so real talk about the modes: the "-a" is only traditional, and honestly the code used can be any 8-bit character set. with "-u" a 16-bit character set is expected, and those chars get transmitted to the kernel as 1, 2, or 3 bytes (following the UTF-8 coding). in these latter two modes — "-a" and "-u", iykyk — the key mapping defined by loadkeys(1) is used. 🌈

the Didable mode for the virtual console keyboard OFF to compliment RAW in which all key events are ignored. the mode prevents vt input buffers from overflowing when a program opens but doesn't read from a tty, like Xorg using only evdev for input. no cap, that's the whole point of it. 💜

kbd_mode operates on the console specified by the "-C" option; if there is none, the console associated with stdin is used. simple as that. 🍓

⚠️ Warning, and I mean it fr fr: changing the keyboard mode, other than between ASCII and Unicode, will probably make your keyboard unusable. set the "-f" option to force such changes. this command is only meant for use (say via remote login) when some program left your keyboard in the wrong state. so like — don't just yolo it at your local tty, bestie, that's giving "i bricked my input device for fun." 😭

🙈 also a lil history note: in some obsolete versions of this program the "-u" option was a synonym for "-s", and older versions of this program may not recognize the "-f" option. so if things are acting weird, it might just be an ancient build being ancient. iconic but problematic. 💅

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

• Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl> — the original main character. 👑

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• loadkeys(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this manual came to you from the kbd package, dated 6 Apr 1994, and it's page KBD_MODE(1) of the manual. go forth, check your keyboard mode, and please do not raw-dog the -f flag. 💖✨🦋