WSKBD(4)

📦
version 11.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

🌸 wskbd(4) — generic keyboard support in wscons 💅

okay bestie, so this is the wskbd page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual, section 4. It's literally the glow-up guide for keyboards in wscons. Let's get into it ✨

✨ NAME ✨

wskbd — generic keyboard support in wscons

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

wskbd* at pckbd? console ? mux 1
(standard PC keyboard)
wskbd* at ukbd? console ? mux 1
(USB keyboard)
wskbd* at lkkbd? console ? mux 1
(DEC LK200/400 serial keyboard)
wskbd0 at akbd? console ? mux 1
(Apple ADB keyboard)
wskbd0 at nextkbd? console ? mux 1
(NeXT keyboard)
wskbd* at vrkiu? console ? mux 1
(NEC VR4000 series HPC keyboard)
wskbd* at skbd? console ? mux 1
(keyboard of misc hpcmips handheld devices)
wskbd* at btkbd? console ? mux 1
(Bluetooth keyboard)
#include <dev/wscons/wsconsio.h>
#include <dev/wscons/wsksymdef.h>

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the wskbd driver is basically the main-character keyboard driver — it handles all the common tasks for keyboards inside the wscons(4) framework. It attaches to the hardware-specific keyboard drivers and gives them their connection to "wsdisplay" devices plus a character device interface. Obsessed, honestly 💖

The common keyboard support consists of:

  • Mapping from keycodes (defined by the specific keyboard driver) to keysyms (hardware independent, defined in <dev/wscons/wsksymdef.h>).
  • Handling of "compose" sequences. Characters commonly not present as separate key on keyboards can be generated after either a special "compose" key is pressed or a "dead accent" character is used. cute little accent side quest 💫
  • Certain translations, like turning an ALT modifier into an ESC prefix.
  • Automatic key repetition ("typematic"). hold the key and it goes brrr 🔥
  • Parameter handling for "keyboard bells".
  • Generation of "keyboard events" for use by X servers.

The wskbd driver provides a number of ioctl functions to control key maps and other parameters. These functions are accessible though the associated wsdisplay(4) device as well. A complete list is in <dev/wscons/wsconsio.h>. The wsconsctl(8) utility allows to access key maps and other variables.

The console locator in the configuration line refers to the device's use as input part of the operating system console. A device specification containing a positive value here will only match if the device is in use as system console. (The console device selection in early system startup is not influenced.) This way, the console device can be connected to a known wskbd device instance. no cap, that's the whole point 🫶

⌨️ Keyboard encodings ⌨️

The following encodings are supported. Device drivers for legacy keyboard interfaces may only support a subset of these. However, generally, all encodings are supported by pckbd(4) and ukbd(4).

The columns go wsconsctl / define / language, bestie 👑

  • wsconsctl — KB_USER — User-defined
  • us — KB_US — English/US keyboard mapping (default) ⭐
  • uk — KB_UK — English/UK keyboard mapping
  • be — KB_BE — Belgian
  • br — KB_BR — Brazilian with "dead accents"
  • cf — KB_CF — Canadian French
  • cz — KB_CZ — Czech (QWERTY)
  • dk — KB_DK — Danish with "dead accents"
  • nl — KB_NL — Dutch
  • ee — KB_EE — Estonian with "dead accents"
  • fi — KB_FI — Finnish
  • fr — KB_FR — French
  • de — KB_DE — German QWERTZ with "dead accents"
  • neo — KB_NEO — German Neo 2 layout
  • gr — KB_GR — Greek
  • hu — KB_HU — Hungarian
  • is — KB_IS — Icelandic with "dead accents"
  • it — KB_IT — Italian
  • jp — KB_JP — Japanese
  • la — KB_LA — Latin American Spanish
  • no — KB_NO — Norwegian with "dead accents"
  • pl — KB_PL — Polish
  • pt — KB_PT — Portuguese
  • ru — KB_RU — Russian
  • es — KB_ES — Spanish
  • sv — KB_SV — Swedish with "dead accents"
  • sf — KB_SF — Swiss French
  • sg — KB_SG — Swiss German
  • tr — KB_TR — Turkish (QWERTY) with "dead accents"
  • ua — KB_UA — Ukrainian
  • us.declk — KB_US|KB_DECLK — English/US mapping for DEC LK400-style keyboards with PC keyboard interface (e.g., LK461)
  • us.dvorak — KB_US|KB_DVORAK — English/US keyboard with "Dvorak" layout
  • us.colemak — KB_US|KB_COLEMAK — English/US keyboard with "Colemak" layout

The ".nodead" suffix (KB_NODEAD flag) can be applied to layouts with "dead accents" to switch them off. bye bye dead accents 💀

The KB_US, KB_UK, KB_FR, KB_JP and KB_US|KB_DVORAK mappings can be modified to swap the left ⟨Ctrl⟩ and the ⟨CapsLock⟩ keys by the KB_SWAPCTRLCAPS variant bit or the ".swapctrlcaps" suffix. iykyk, everyone wants that swap 🌈

The ".metaesc" suffix (KB_METAESC flag) option can be applied to any layout. If set, keys pressed together with the ALT modifier are prefixed by an ESC character. (Standard behaviour is to add 128 to the ASCII value.)

🧚 Ioctls 🧚

The following ioctl(2) calls are provided by the wskbd driver or by devices which use it. Their definitions are found in <dev/wscons/wsconsio.h>.

  • WSKBDIO_GTYPE — Get the keyboard type.
  • WSKBDIO_GETMODE — Get the keyboard mode, 0 means translated through keyboard map, 1 means raw.
  • WSKBDIO_SETMODE — Set the keyboard mode.
  • WSKBDIO_COMPLEXBELL, WSKBDIO_SETBELL, WSKBDIO_GETBELL, WSKBDIO_SETDEFAULTBELL, WSKBDIO_GETDEFAULTBELL (struct wskbd_bell_data) — Get and set keyboard bell settings. 🔔
  • WSKBDIO_SETKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_GETKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_SETDEFAULTKEYREPEAT, WSKBDIO_GETDEFAULTKEYREPEAT (struct wskbd_keyrepeat_data) — Get and set keyboard autorepeat settings.
  • WSKBDIO_SETLEDS, WSKBDIO_GETLEDS (int) — Get and set keyboard LED settings. ✨
  • WSKBDIO_GETMAP, WSKBDIO_SETMAP (struct wskbd_map_data) — Get and set keyboard keymapping settings.
  • WSKBDIO_GETENCODING, WSKBDIO_SETENCODING (kbd_t) — Get and set keyboard encoding settings.
  • WSKBDIO_GETKEYCLICK, WSKBDIO_SETKEYCLICK (int) — Get and set keyboard keyclick settings.
  • WSKBDIO_SETVERSION (int) — Set the wscons_event protocol version. The default is 0 for binary compatibility. The latest version is always available as WSKBDIO_EVENT_VERSION, and is currently 1. All new code should use a call similar to the below to ensure the correct version is returned.
int ver = WSKBDIO_EVENT_VERSION;
if (ioctl(fd, WSKBDIO_SETVERSION, &ver) == -1)
        err(EXIT_FAILURE, "cannot set version");

💜 FILES 💜

  • /dev/wskbd*

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

btkbd(4), pckbd(4), ukbd(4), wscons(4), wsmux(4), wsconsctl(8), wskbd(9)

🙈 BUGS 🙈

The list of builtin mappings doesn't follow any logic. It grew as people submitted what they needed. fr fr it's just vibes and crowd-sourced chaos 😭

okay that's the whole page bestie, go forth and keyboard 💅✨

this was from the Debian build of the page, dated September 18, 2021 — mwah, signing off 🎀🫶
📦 where this page comes from