Re: Holding Ctrl + f/b/p/n/etc. randomly prints the character

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com>]

Matthew Crisanti wrote:
> Well it's a laptop, so the keyboard is integrated. I don't think it's a
> hardware problem, though, since the problem doesn't show up in Vista. The
> problem also doesn't occur when I use a USB keyboard.

the latter suggests that your laptop keyboard *is* (part of) the problem.

on the physical keyboard, the pressing of the control key and the pressing
of a letter key are two separate events. at some point in the chain toward
the response by the program, the system has to combine the two events and
turn it into a single event. my guess is that if you press and hold both
keys, some of the letter key presses are registered by the system as
occurring *without* an accompanying ctrl key press. 

> Right now, I'm running Vista using vmware from within ubuntu, and I'm
> getting the same problem , so it can't be a problem with an emacs
> setting or anything, since I'm using the same emacs config file that I use
> when I boot into Vista normally.

i would be very surprised if it were a problem with emacs, as it occurs
much lower down in the system.

> Since the problem occurs in both gentoo and
> ubuntu, and the only thing common between them that I can think of is the
> kernel .config file that I use to compile the kernels for both, I'm assuming
> it's a problem with my kernel, and that I'm in the wrong newsgroup. Any 
> suggestions are still welcome, however.

it may be a kernel problem, or it may be a problem with X. it may be that
you need to change your keyboard model in xorg.conf, or perhaps some
keyboard handling code in either the kernel or in X is faulty.

btw, i rarely if ever find the need in emacs to use C-f/b/p/n in the manner
that you describe. using M-f/b/p/n and other key bindings to move around in
a buffer is often much more effective.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)