Xmodmap and “XKB: Couldn’t compile keymap”

A while ago when I upgraded my distribution, several keys went wonky on me and ceased functioning according to my wishes. It was a minor inconvenience to have things like the Caps Lock key become enabled again. So I pecked around at fixing it here and there, but never really put in much thought or effort until today.

I remap my keys with the /etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap (aka ~/.Xmodmap) file. The problem was my .Xmodmap was borking when X started, so no remappings were taking place. (If one part of .Xmodmap fails, they all fail.) In my /var/log/Xorg.0.log I found this:


(EE) Error compiling keymap (server-0)
(EE) XKB: Couldn't compile keymap
(WW) Couldn't load XKB keymap, falling back to pre-XKB keymap


And in the output from X – apparently from the keymap compiler (xkbcomp) – were repeated warnings/errors like this:


Warning:   Duplicate shape name ""
                 Using last definition
Error:        Section defined without a name
                 Definition ignored
Warning:   Multiple doodads named ""
                 Using first definition


Point! Clack! Mash! And Hurr! The Clueless User Was Confuzzled

“Move!” the oppressive beeper-equipped geek howls in utter contempt at the perfectly inoffensive white collar worker. The worker has been given no chance to do anything, but he is already condemned of failure. The geek, clearly the master of his domain, wishes to make sure all around know who’s the boss of the computer realm in which they aimlessly wander. And all the normal users, with their completely reasonable requests and questions, are incessantly scorned by the geek’s insane derision.

The worst of the geek stereotype, and more, is ridiculed in this popular Saturday Night Live skit by Jimmy Fallon. I greatly dislike such portrayals. This is certainly an exaggeration for comedic effect, but it is funny to people because it has an air of truth to it. My problem is that the truth is not so easily discernible as appears on the surface.

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Fluxbox In-Depth: Mad Customization And Other Tips

Introduction

When I was first preparing to switch to Linux many years ago, I went into research mode and looked around the net a bit. At the time, part of the allure of Linux were the crazy cool desktops people had. After I switched I tried Gnome, then KDE, and was depressed at how uncool and *dozelike they were. Eventually, I discovered that all those amazing desktops were the result of Fluxbox (or the other *box forks). I switched immediately.

To my surprise, I found that not only was I able to get a really cool appearance, but Fluxbox made all the things I wanted out of a window manager, and some I didn’t know I wanted, simple. It turned out that I was not the only user to have noticed those operating system limitations and failings I’d been grumbling about for years, particularly with *doze. The Fluxbox crew apparently knew my pain and had gone about addressing all of those complaints.

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Partitioning: A Different Perspective with Encryption and RAIDs

Introduction

Everybody’s got an opinion, and I’m no different. After reading Trent’s piece yesterday, I thought I’d add my two cents as my partitioning scheme is quite complex (though I can think of several ways to make it worse). For newbies, some of this is unlikely something to try, but you might want to read anyway to get an idea of what can be done.

For starters, I have 1GB of physical RAM, and 4GB of swap space split over two drives. I have two 120GB drives that I use for my primary system that are split into 8 partitions (and a logical ninth). Most of these partitions mirror (RAID-1) each other so that if one drive fails, the other maintains the system until I can replace it. You may note that the swaps are not mirrored, but both swaps and the md08 array are encrypted. Like Trent, I intended a dual boot with Windows, so the first partition on sda is NTFS. (Of course, I haven’t actually had a Windows OS on that partition in about two years, but it’s nice to know I have it if I find a game that won’t play nice in Wine.) Also note that /boot is a mirrored partition, which keeps the data safe, but upon bootup the boot loader (LILO/GRUB) accesses only one of the two drives (i.e., sda3, not md3).

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