What keyboard map to set for no mapping at all (linux)

[pauld]

I've bought one of Hasu's USB-USB convertors and it's just arrived.  As soon as I get time, I will be trying it out.  Assuming it handles all of my keyboard mapping, what should I choose as the default system language, so that essentially input from the keyboard just passes cleanly through the OS?  I assume US English?  I have noticed occasionally that if something goes seriously wrong and I get dropped into a recovery shell, US English seems to be the fallback keyboard layout.

[suicidal_orange]

Maybe I'm missing something but where are you setting this 'default language'?  The convertor is no different to a keyboard, it will send codes which get converted to characters based on the setting in your operating system so the only consideration as I see it is whether you want " or @ above 2.  Sure it can be a bit annoying if you find yourself in recovery with them switched but it's not unusable if you're used to a UK board.  You can change the setting for recovery console too, if you only have one box (but then I would hope you rarely see it...)

[pauld]

I'm sure you're not missing anything!  I'm just confused - and probably also being confusing. 

I'm using a variant of sv-dvorak so, for example, my left hand home row is AOEU instead of ASDF.  As I understand it, what happens at the moment is that the keyboard sends, respectively, the scan codes that normally map onto ASDF but the operating system maps them onto AOEU instead (unless in recovery mode, which I admit is rare).  The bottom left key, say, undergoes a slightly different remapping because I use xmodmap to change it to the Ä character, whereas the O/S keymap thinks it's a backslash. 

My concern was that I would end up with the O/S remapping scan codes to something else, but I have probably just misunderstood the whole thing (haven't done this before).  I take it from what you say that if I hit that bottom left key the keyboard will send the scan code for Ä and it will look to the O/S as if I had hit the key that character is normally on.  Does that in fact mean that I should use Swedish as the language?  I currently use UK English, dorakukp variant, with xmodmap adding the Swedish characters as well as moving some of the other keys around.  I don't know if either the UK or US character sets contain the Å, Ä and Ö characters.  Or doesn't that matter?  Sorry, I'm a bit muddled about all this!

[suicidal_orange]

Swedish Dvorak?  Didn't see that coming from someone in Ireland!  If the bottom left key is Ä it sounds like you have an ANSI keyboard (wide enter key not the tall ISO one) too...

I have no idea about Swedish keyboards or the Dvorak changes, are all the keys the same just moved or does shift and [key] do something different in Dvorak to standard?  It might be easier to tell your O/S you use Swedish and move the keys on the default layer of the convertor to make them Dvorak, then if you ever find yourself at the recovery prompt you can switch to a different layer which is standard layout so will type English (which I guess is what's on your keycaps)

If shift and [key] is different to standard Swedish you might be better off using US international which I believe has all the special characters available somehow, then you would need to use a combination of macros and FN (layer) keys pretending to be shift keys to make it work.  I have no idea how the recovery console would react to the special characters input in this way or if you would still need a standard layout layer.

The USB/USB convertor is definitely what you need to do this either way - you don't want to do it again if you ever get a new board!

[pauld]

It's an ISO keyboard.  Standard Swedish layout is much the same as qwerty except some of the punctuation characters are moved to make way for the 3 additional letters.  Likewise, Swedish dvorak is much the same except, again, the extra letters causing the punctuation marks to get moved.  O/S in fact comes with the (sort of) more standard svorak layout, but I use the alternative sv-dvorak layout: the latter leaves . and , in usual places and puts Ä and Ö elsewhere.

At the moment, I have all the letters and pretty much all of the punctuation marks available just on the base layer of a 65% keyboard, no need for anything complicated like macros.  FN keys and some additional characters are on layer 2 and a few bits and pieces are on layer 3.

I will just experiment I think - presumably I can always re-program the convertor if I mess it up.  But it will be nice to get it sorted and not have to muck about so much to get the layout.