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    Help restoring my machine after trying Extended mode

    • Started by bmx007
    • 5 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 22-Nov-2009
    • Posts: 58

    I've been a colemak user for years now and discover DreymaR extened mode the other day.
    I thought I should give it a try and try to instal it. I downloaded DreymaR Big bag of Keyboard Tricks, typed some random commands (I don't remember exactly which one, but it was something like `install-dreymar-xmod.sh -ox` and other) and it totally borked my machine.
    I'm running Ubuntu under VirtualBox (under Windows 10) and now I can't even log in. It boots, but when I try to log in, instead of launching the window manager, it just keep in console mode and blink.

    I could create a new VM and mount the old disk and copy everything back but I'm short of disk space and I would prefer to restore my VM.
    Any idea ?

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    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Gee, I hope you made a snapshot of the VM before trying out the install? ;-)

    Well, since you ask I'm guessing that you didn't and that you have learned that point the hard way now but too late. My sympathies. :-(

    The bork effect can happen if you've gotten the wrong ownership for the xkb files. If you have the console working, you could try running the following command:

    $> sudo apt-get install xkb-data

    Before that, you could always try restoring your xkb files with my install script:

    $> ./install-dreymar-xmod.sh -r 1
    Last edited by DreymaR (23-Jan-2017 10:07:34)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • Registered: 22-Nov-2009
    • Posts: 58

    Thanks for answering ( I didn't get any notification so I didn't know until yesterday that you answered).
    You guessed write I didn't clone my VM (mainly because I forgot, but also because I couldn't anyway for space disk reason).
    I had to reinstall everything so I won't be able to check what the problem was.

    Anyway, I'm really interested in the extended layers but I would prefer to keep the traditionnal vim cursor movement (h,j,k,l) (so h,n,e,i) instead of the FPS one.
    I would probably also map : onto to o (to keep it at it's qwerty position)
    Is it easy to do my own custom mode ? I'll have a look at all the files, but it's not clear how it works. Do you have any link to any resources which explains how to do so ?

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    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    You don't have to clone the VM! There should be a snapshot function which is like an incremental backup in that it can rewind your VM state to one (or several) set point(s). Always do that before trying anything brave. It's one of the reasons I actually prefer Linux VMs over real Linux installs these days. (Not sure if it's free to use with VMPlayer? I use VirtualBox these days as it's actually free.)

    XKB is a beast. Good luck with it, hehe. But basically what you can do is swap around key names in my symbols/extend file. That'll change the lv5 up definitions of keys without changing anything else, and should be what you're looking for.

    Example: A snippet from my extend file.

        key <AC06> { symbols[Group1]=[ NoSymbol , NoSymbol , NoSymbol , NoSymbol ,
                       Page_Down            , Page_Down             , // PgDn
                       Page_Down            , KP_Next              ], // PgDn
                     actions[Group1]=[NoAction(),NoAction(),NoAction(),NoAction(),
                       Redirect(key=<PGDN>) , Redirect(key=<PGDN>)  , // <PGDN>
                       Redirect(key=<PGDN>) , NoAction()           ]
                   };  // H
        key <AC07> { symbols[Group1]=[ NoSymbol , NoSymbol , NoSymbol , NoSymbol ,
                       Left                 , Left                  , //  ←
                       KP_1                 , U21D9                ], // KP_1 ↙ ⇙
                     actions[Group1]=[NoAction(),NoAction(),NoAction(),NoAction(),
                       Redirect(key=<LEFT>) , Redirect(key=<LEFT>)  , // <LEFT>
                       NoAction()           , NoAction()           ]
                   };  // Cmk N

    If you were to swap <AC06> and <AC07> in the above, your Ext+H would become Left and Ext+N would become PgDn. (Unless you use the Ext+AltGr mappings, don't worry about that bit.)

    Not sure what you mean by mapping colon to O. On the Extend layer? See above. On the main layout? You'd have to look in the symbols/colemak file.

    Last edited by DreymaR (14-Mar-2017 16:10:14)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • Registered: 22-Nov-2009
    • Posts: 58

    I thought that snapshot was to save the volatile state of the VM (memory), I didn't realize it saved the disk as well (or am I wrong ?). However, for some reason I get an error message when I try to save a snapshot. Anyway I managed to play with the `symbol/extend` file and it seems to work indeed. I'll need to finalize a final layout before trying on my MV.

    Many thanks

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    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    You're wrong: A snapshot saves the whole shebang. Only saving the virtual RAM and not the virtual disk state would be pretty pointless and cause bad errors.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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