Re: [Qemu-devel] [Qemu-ppc] Mac OS X on QEMU

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

Alexander Graf <agraf@suse.de> writes:

> Am 10.07.2013 um 21:54 schrieb Programmingkid <programmingkidx@gmail.com>:
>
>> qemu-system-ppc -keyboard-layout-file ./keyboard-layout.txt 
>
> That's exactly what -k does today already, no?

No.  What we send to the guest is a scancode.  This literally
corresponds to "row 4, column 5".  With a good VNC client (like
gtk-vnc), the native GTK UI, or SDL, we're able to read these scan codes
directly from the keyboard and pass them to the guest.

So as long as you're using one of the above, you never have to think
about "-k".

However, a crappy VNC client (like realvnc) can only send symbolic key
symbols.  Literally "the D key".  However, QEMU has no idea what the
stickers are your physical keyboard.  So you have to tell it what the
symbolic key => scancode mapping is via the "-k" option.

Of course, we default to en-us which covers a lot of people.

Now, if for some goofy reason, you wanted to have rules that did:

map "row 4, column 5" => "row 6, column 9"

We would need a new interface for that.  But that's not something QEMU
should do IMHO.  I suspect this thread started because the OP is using a
crappy VNC client or a builtin UI that cannot pass through scan codes.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

>
> Alex