keyboard problem

[jbk at mail2.gis.net (jbk)]

Laura Conrad wrote:
> On my shiny new Thinkpad laptop, the numlock key doesn't seem to work
> under linux.   There isn't a separate numeric keypad, but numlock is
> supposed to turn some of the letters into numbers so that you can
> enter numbers the way you do with a keypad.  Instead, the letters do
> stop entering letters, but they don't seem to start entering numbers.
> (also the numlock led doesn't seem to work).
>
> I know there are lots of ways to fiddle with the keyboard layout under
> X -- does anyone have recent experience fixing a problem like this,
> and how did you do it?
>
> The reason I suddenly want a numeric keypad is that I just got myself
> a shiny new MIDI keyboard, and I want to use a music transcription
> method where I enter the note value with the MIDI keyboard with my
> left hand and the time on the keypad with my right hand.  I was quite
> excited when I set up one of the programs that lets a MIDI keyboard
> enter note values into an emacs buffer and it "just worked", so it's
> frustrating not to be able to enter the numbers.
>
>   
Well it seems from my googling that keymapping is a very specialized 
endeavor. It appears that to some extend the mappings are dependent on 
how diverse the kernel developers wanted to make the special mapping 
recognition. So what you want wasn't wanted by enough of us to make it 
worth their while. I imagine that if you could find out how to get the 
key code for the mappings and offsets for your thinkpad that you might 
be able to edit the Xmodmap to get the desired functionality.  I'm 
curious but not devoted.

till next
    Jim