Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:35:27 -0600 From: Bob Thompson <bobthomp@snookles.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Possible to use multiple keyboards simultaneously? Message-ID: <200303310235.h2V2ZRkT098903@snookles.snookles.com>
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Greetings.
I'd *really* like to use multiple keyboards simultaneously on the same
FreeBSD 4.x box(*). Console mode would be great, but I'd settle for
an X11-only solution. A 5.x solution would be fine, too.
The best I can find is using kbdcontrol(1) to choose which keyboard is
the active one:
# kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd0 < /dev/console
# kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd1 < /dev/console
... where /dev/kbd0 is my PS/2 keyboard and /dev/kbd1 is (when plugged
in) a USB keyboard. Like I said, I wish to have both active
simultaneously.
The man page for kbdcontrol(1) and ukbd(4) don't say anything that
makes me hopeful. From what I see in the implementation of the
CONS_SETKBD ioctl(), I'm even less hopeful. Hopefully I'm just
wrong?
/bob
(*) I've got a Mini from FingerWorks, http://www.fingerworks.com/.
When plugged in, it advertises itself both as a keyboard and as a
mouse.
Mar 18 22:25:59 littlebird /kernel: ukbd0: FingerWorks TouchStream Mini ver 1.09, rev 1.10/1.09, addr 2, iclass 3/1
Mar 18 22:25:59 littlebird /kernel: kbd1 at ukbd0
Mar 18 22:25:59 littlebird /kernel: ums0: FingerWorks TouchStream Mini ver 1.09, rev 1.10/1.09, addr 2, iclass 3/1
Mar 18 22:25:59 littlebird /kernel: ums0: 5 buttons and Z dir.
It's a really cool thing mouse-wise: simultaneous multiple finger
gestures are really cool. And useful. However, the keyboard isn't as
nice to type on as my Kinesis. But there are some gestures that the
Mini sends as a keyboard device, such as up/down/right/left arrows,
not as a mouse device. Once you start dragging two fingers across a
FingerWorks keyboard to move the mouse and a single finger to move the
cursor, it gets addictive *very* quickly.
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