Raw console/TTY access?


I think the problem on the pandora is more the number of keys that need to be pressed simultaneously exceeds the number of simultaneous keys supported, or something like that. Ctrl and alt are easy, but f1 requires you to press fn and 1 or 2 at the same time.

One weirdness on this machine I'm trying on running archlinux and openbox is that ctrl+altgr+f2 is enough to get me out of the X session running on f1, but from there I have to switch to the proper alt to get back.
 
Oh!

I had a script somewhere which could drop the user to the tty and back.. I wonder if I could dig that up.
 
from a virtual terminal you can also do a
Code:
sudo chvt 1
to change tty

EDIT:
And this was an old discussion about the ctrl+alt+f1 not working on the Pandora
 
Will I be able to control-alt-f1 and get to the console without X?
Yes.

I thought I should be able to mash both right shoulder buttons (alt + ctrl), top left shoulder (Fn) with the left index and press F1 with the left thumb. That didn't work on the prototype. Likely still something not quite completely Alt &/or Ctrl about the right shoulders.

Start/Alt + Select/Ctrl (two are mashable together) with the right thumb, top left shoulder (Fn) with the left index finger and F1 with the left thumb. That worked.
 
I thought I should be able to mash both right shoulder buttons (alt + ctrl), top left shoulder (Fn) with the left index and press F1 with the left thumb. That didn't work on the prototype.
Start/Alt + Select/Ctrl (two are mashable together) with the right thumb, top left shoulder (Fn) with the left index finger and F1 with the left thumb. That worked.
Well, currently, "Start" and "Select" are the *left* Ctrl and Alt, while the right triggers buttons are provide the right Ctrl and Alt keys. But since the "right Alt" is also known as "Alt Gr", that might explain why you have that behavior : Ctrl+AltGr+F1 dont switch VT but only Ctrl+Alt+F1.
You have to understand that the current mapping is just the result of some chats between Askarus and I. And that's it. The good news is : that mapping is defined in a code easy to change (thanks to B-ZaR) that may change if a better setup is found and a consensus in the community is found.
 
Well, currently, "Start" and "Select" are the *left* Ctrl and Alt, while the right triggers buttons are provide the right Ctrl and Alt keys. But since the "right Alt" is also known as "Alt Gr", that might explain why you have that behavior : Ctrl+AltGr+F1 dont switch VT but only Ctrl+Alt+F1.
You have to understand that the current mapping is just the result of some chats between Askarus and I. And that's it. The good news is : that mapping is defined in a code easy to change (thanks to B-ZaR) that may change if a better setup is found and a consensus in the community is found.
That explains why the shoulder alt doesn't work properly. Where do I go to change this to right alt per the keymat design (Pyra should not need Altgr for >95% of us.)?
 
@aTc Next round of the OS, can we have right shoulder Alt mapped to "right Alt" instead of Altgr please? It was never meant to be 'standard' as Atlgr. There should be no reason to map it as AltGr for any Western European language and it is not how the keymat was designed.

Before this turns into a keyboard argument, we have Fn+Shift = Compose and an entire layer of user-map friendly keys on the Fn+Shift layer of the keymat. Taking the right shoulder button away for AltGr for the -very few- who would potentially actually need it is an error that needs corrected.

Right now that right 'Alt' shoulder button is effectively software 'broken' for All English and German potential Pyra users.

Thank you!
 
I'm not sure there is anything different beteen 'right alt' and 'altgr'. Right alt is just something on the original PC keyboard, and has the same keycode. That said I'm not sure if funkeymonkey converts keys to keycode or to some other identifier, so the keycode being the same might be different, but I was angling to get them both set to LAlt to be sure.
 
I'm not sure there is anything different beteen 'right alt' and 'altgr'. Right alt is just something on the original PC keyboard, and has the same keycode. That said I'm not sure if funkeymonkey converts keys to keycode or to some other identifier, so the keycode being the same might be different, but I was angling to get them both set to LAlt to be sure.
There are, actually, three Alts. US keyboards have distinct definitions for left alt and right alt. French keyboards have left Alt and AltGr, but no 'right alt'.

This might help?
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/199286/map-right-alt-to-alt-instead-of-altgr

I tried this:
https://blog.andrewbeacock.com/2007/06/getting-right-alt-key-alt-gr-to-work-in.html

That fixed it to what I would expect to be 'default behavior' of the right Alt.

I can now press both right shoulder buttons (Atl + Ctrl) the top left shoulder button (Fn) and F1 to get out of X. Right shoulder Alt + left shoulder Fn + F4 now closes windows.

Now we just need to get the default behavior to work that way.
 
@aTc Next round of the OS, can we have right shoulder Alt mapped to "right Alt" instead of Altgr please? It was never meant to be 'standard' as Atlgr. There should be no reason to map it as AltGr for any Western European language and it is not how the keymat was designed.

I've made it configurable as per comment in the code. New configurations options are documented in the readme. The new default is "left alt" for both keys.
The code build and should work, but that's completly untested since my old proto is still MIA.
I hope @aTc wont have murder ideas because of that :D
 
I've made it configurable as per comment in the code. New configurations options are documented in the readme. The new default is "left alt" for both keys.
The code build and should work, but that's completly untested since my old proto is still MIA.
I hope @aTc wont have murder ideas because of that :D
They should not both return left Alt. Right Alt is an actual distinct thing from Left Alt and from AltGr.

After the above change in the Debian settings, XEV on my prototype is now showing:
Press keyboard Start/Alt resolves as keycode 64 0xffe9, Alt_L
Press top right shoulder Alt resolves as keycode 108 0xffea, Alt_R

It is the default setting in the OS from:
System - Preferences - Hardware - Keyboard - Layouts - Options - Alt/Win key behavior - select "Alt and Meta are on Alt".

Doing this makes one change to the keyboard shown in:
System - Preferences - Hardware - Keyboard - Layouts - Show.

Stock OS, the right Alt key is Meta_R/AltGr. After the change I made above, the right Alt key is Meta_R/Alt_R.
 
Well there is also a dedicated USB tty terminal you can use too. It's one of the micro USB ports in the back, plug it into another computer and it becomes a serial port TTY device, typically /dev/ttyUSB0 on a linux machine.
before OS boot up of the OS It's typically used as a way to get a u-boot bootloader prompt if you need to modify bootloader args, once booted it's just a regular linux command prompt.
 
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