[MiNT] Language/keyboard selection and problems

[skeezix <skeezix@skeleton.org>]

	Probably dumb questions but I'll throw them out anyway --

	tl;dr -- how do I configure the keyboard mapping to QWERTY in GEM 
and in MiNT?

	Long (questions near the end):

	I'm on a Firebee here, but hopefully it is common across 
MiNT platforms.

	Given..

	- Booting FireTOS, the GEM menus are in English ("Set Video" and 
so on.)

	- Checking some of the ACCessories, they might be in French or 
German, say. XControl.ACC is showing up in French for me.

		-> I'm woefully out of date, and naive -- is this a 
function of copying RSC files around, and the app having a French RSC file 
applied now? XControl.ACC I have on this particular setup, but no RSC 
files for it (or they're buried.)

	Set up a CF with two partitions (FAT16, ext2fs); Set up current 
MiNT on partition one (which maps to drive C: in FireTOS), and I nabbed 
Gentoo MiNT tarball 'ready to go' and untarred into the ext2fs partition. 
Naturally, I'm cribbing conf file bitsd and binaries from random places, 
and building some bits, in a rush to see what happens ;)

The Gentoo sample I used is:
http://gentoo.atariforge.org/gentoo.tar.bz2
	from
http://gentoo.atariforge.org/

	FWIW, I'm using a TT030 keyboard (same as Mega ST keyboard); 
English keyboard.

	I think Gentoo is not important for my question, but it might well 
be so I mention it anyway.

	Boot up; with the C partition having AUTO with the mint loader, 
I get to GEM with A and B (irrelevent) and C showing (C being the FAT16 
that has MINT and all that on it.) The ext2 partition doesn't show to GEM, 
but I believe the symlinks and such are all set up in Mint-space. At 
least, when I run shell, /bin and /usr and so on appear nicely.

	- Mousing around I run TosWin2.app .. and its menus are in German; 
hitting Daten -> whatever to run the shell, and bash comes up nicely.

	Problem: Keyboard doesn't seem to work in GEM (but after toswin2 
is up, the keyboard 'works' at the shell.) So the keyboard is grabbed by 
Mint?

	Problem the second: So now I've got English GEM, French 
XControl.ACC, German TosWin2.ACC.

	Problem the Third: My keyboard is mapped non-natively -- I suspect 
it is French setup as its AZERT layout and not QWERTY; previously I'd been 
using someone elses Mint and it was QWERZ I think (German). Ah, what 
multicultural times we live in :)

	Mint startup reports keyboard and language nationality code 0 
(zero), if it matters. (And notes that its loading up some language tbl 
file .. keyboard.tbl IIRC.)

	I don't know anything about how GEM/etc/etc determines the locale 
and language to use .. old old memories.

	Questions:


	- Given GEM is showing English, I'm supposing I'm okay there (or 
perhaps its flashed to En? Or does GEM default to English unless an ACC 
overrides? Or does it pick it up based on keyboard or something?) .. 
anyway, is okay for me.

	- What about ACCessories .. I've not loaded up a pile to see, but 
any idea why my particular XControl.ACC is showing in French (ie: 
different to GEM itself)? Probably an easy fix.

	- TosWin2.app -- I've only ever seen this in German (ie: In 
English in ARanyM, its German as well.) Is it hardcoded, or another 
setting somewhere?


	- Keyboard .. any idea why keyboard is unresponsive at GEM before 
I open the shell?

	- Keyboard mapping .. Any idea why its in French in the bash 
prompt? (I had intended to try it on some other apps before running 
toswin2, to see if normal Gem apps are French as well, but obviously I 
can't type anything :) -- where is the keyboard mapping selection 
specified? (I dont' see anything in Mint.cnf) and I highly doubt its a 
compile time option.

	--

	I think in yesterdays boot, keyboard was okay (English mapped), 
which was on a totally different install (ie: it came from someone else by 
accident.) Certainly, keyboard worked at GEM there, but I wasn't fiddling 
with a current MiNT either.

	(I realize all of this is unstable on FireBee; thats part of the 
fun, of course.)

	So I've done something in my fresh install.. :)

	Any help is appreciated ;)

	--

	Aside: I'm thinking I should redo this process, and have 3 
partitions..

	1) FAT16 - boot partition that has Mint, etc
	2) FAT32 partition (if TOS can handle that, otherwise FAT16) -- 
boot partition also to be used as shared data between setups; non Mint.
	3) ext2fs - for Unix-environment, be it Gentoo or SpareMint, or 
whatever.

		jeff

--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.