TYPE Repeating Problem Making System Nearly Unusuable!

[freethetree]

Hey eeverybody, tthiis is my first post on tthee boards here aafter lurking foor a ffew dayys tryinng to get PCBSD running ssmoothly. Thee installiattion was aa snap aandd thhee wifi was ssuprisingly painless to set up, overall I wass quitee impressed wwith the OS... until I started typing. As you havvee probablly noticed, thee system reppeats letters randomlly durring my typing. At firstt I thoughtt iitt wass because the keyboard reppeat wass set ttoo short, but I changgedd it tto 1second andd it made no ddifferennce, theen i ttuurnedd off the keyrepeat feature tootallly... still havve thhe same pprroblem. Ive beeen searcching thhe boards and havventt bbeeen aable tto find any info on the issuue I am having. I mmade the install on a Toshiba Satellite 5100-603 laptop tthat I gott recently. It caamee with XP loaded but I dont really care ffor windows so tthee first thing I soughhtt tto do was find a vviable replacement OS.

I aam a professional photographherr and from whhatt ive seen sso far PCBSD has suiitable software ffor me to edit mmy immages, update mmy websiite, andd ftp filess bbacck aanndd ffourth tto my agenccy. Sure the apps are bbasic, but I ddontt ddo anytthing besidess ddodge/burn/levels/ccurvves/bbrightnness/ccontrast/ andd clonne out hairs when I edit (predominantly scaanss of black&white nnegative film). esppecially witth thiis lapttop which will moostlyy bee ussed wwhillee traveling thiis year to make rough edits aand quickly uplooad new work.

So now thee one major thing stoppingg me from committinngg to PCBSD is tthis horribllee key repeat problem! I caannot write witth this! Last niight I had to writee a bbio for an upcoming eevent in France next montth aand it took 5x longeer thaan it shoulld as I hadd tto delete extra letters everr few wwoords. If anyone can provide any sort oof help, PLEASE I would be ffooreever grateful. I wwoulldd much rattherr run a BSD bbasedd syystem thaan Linuux so i am trrying tto sort thiss out iif possible, I have experience witth OSX andd IRIX and love the rock soliid stability of UNIX systems and thhe way that things juustt generaally worrk when you teelll them tto.

Up unntil nooww I haave primmarily been ussing Mac ffoor my entiire life but my lapttop brokkee somewhere bbetween NYC and London last montth and I was lucky enough to get tthis one ffoor a reallly good price from a friennd's booss so now i am trryinngg to make it work for me. (Funny howw expensive things likke llaptopss aalways have a habit off breaaking just after thee start oof a lonng ooverseas tripp) Of course I realize tthis is beta software, I have hhad tons oof querky liittle reminndrs of tthiss fact aas I havve bbeen explooring tthee OS for the llast few daays, buutt a problem as large as thiis typinng issue iiss not something I caan work arounnd.

Thaanks everyone for takingg the time to read tthis garblled mess ooff a post, I reaallly enjoy tthee community vibe around hhere and the open-source conncept is something I haave instantly faallen inlove witth... eenough to atteemppt lleaaving tthhe Addobbe Creatiive Suiite for featuure stripped bare-bones opensource replacements.

Ethiical ccomputing, gotta lovee it.

-David

[antik]

Hey eeverybody, tthiis is my first post on tthee boards here aafter lurking foor a ffew dayys tryinng to get PCBSD running ssmoothly. Thee installiattion was aa snap aandd thhee wifi was ssuprisingly painless to set up, overall I wass quitee impressed wwith the OS... until I started typing. As you havvee probablly noticed, thee system reppeats letters randomlly durring my typing. At firstt I thoughtt iitt wass because the keyboard reppeat wass set ttoo short, but I changgedd it tto 1second andd it made no ddifferennce, theen i ttuurnedd off the keyrepeat feature tootallly... still havve thhe same pprroblem.

Welcome- this is really strange problem but I got this too but not so obviously like your random problem. I got IBM ThinkPad and noticed this strange behaviour also- have to research what causing this problem.

[marc]

This is caused by the BIOS setting.

[dracheflieger]

It seems that *BSD has this problem with Toshibas. Here is a fix from this fellow

However, XFree86 4.2.0 (and any previous version) is not usable as is: it sets the keyboard in raw mode but is unable to interpret multiple key release events. It results into multiple key presses, such as in thisss exaamplllle. The right fix would be to patch XFree86 so that it handles those events correctly (as does the console FreeBSD driver, as well as the Linux one). However, in the meantime, you should install the x11/accessx port and use the following command in your ~/.xinitrc:

ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 20 -timeout
, the page can be found here (http://www.rfc1149.net/freebsd-portege-4010.html.en#xf86config) and you can find many links about your problem here (http://freebsd.rambler.ru/srch?words=repeating+keys)

Hope it helps,

[Apatewna]

Open Konsole and enter this command % xset r off
It completely disables autorepeat.

If this doesn't work try % xset r rate 400 40 to set the keyboard read rate.

If one of these commands works then you can put it permanently in your .xinitrc file (it's in your personal folder and it's hidden)

Next question : do you remember what kind of keyboard you chose during the first installation steps?

[TerryP]

I think Toshiba and BSD rarly mix right. My only personal expirence though was with a very cheap satilite.

What about lowering the repeat speed in KDE's options ?

[T-Keith]

My computer did this as well, but increasing the repeat time fixed it. :?

[freethetree]

drache-

Thaanks for thee links, thatt seemmss to be thee pprobleem. If I type vvery very slowyy and make sure that thhere aree no simultanious kkey RELEASES then I do not hhaavee thhee repeatingg issue.

I have juust fetchedd tthee ssyystem sourcee wwitth CVSup aandd aam now fetcching tthhe ports eith Portsnap via thhe PCBSD ssystem settings (takingg a looooong time) so I can try to DL the x11/accessx port. Hopeffully fixing the problem will not takee as lonngg as gettinng thhee tools to fix the problem, I had to ggo to tthe locaal pub with freee wifi as the wifi in my fflat ddownloads at around 5k/sec aandd cuts ouutt at random. If I ddont maanage too fix tthe probleem atlleast I will leave drunk!

I aam not eentirely ssuuree wwhhat

"use the following command in your ~/.xinitrc:

ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 20 -timeout "

means? Howw wwoulld onnee access thhe ~/.xinitrc? Althouggh I hhave OSX andd IRIX experrience, I stuck tto tthee GUI 99% of thee time (iiff iit ainnt broke....)

Thanks for the reepliess guyys, this is a big hhelp!

[freethetree]

well kpoorts dooesntt work, just crashess evvery time I try to get the ffile so ive installedd accessx via the terminal (juust as easy with the necissary commmands). No problems heree but it woulld be ggood tto gett a ports app witth a gui that iss stablle inorder for the OS to fflouurish. Most people seem tto be scared ooff tthhe terminal and sometimmes there just arennt PBIs for stuff or theyre ouutt ooff date.

now im sttill stuck with tthiis .xinitrc thinng, I googled aa biit aandd it seemms iit shoulld be in /etc/X11 aor in /home and its nott theree, a finnd .xinitrc in the terminal sayys "No such fille or ddirectory"

aam I going abouutt this wronng?

[dracheflieger]

If I ddont maanage too fix tthe probleem atlleast I will leave drunk! :lol:


I aam not eentirely ssuuree wwhhat

"use the following command in your ~/.xinitrc:

ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 20 -timeout "

means? Howw wwoulld onnee access thhe ~/.xinitrc? Althouggh I hhave OSX andd IRIX experrience, I stuck tto tthee GUI 99% of thee time (iiff iit ainnt broke....)

Thanks for the reepliess guyys, this is a big hhelp!

Click on Kmenu|Runn Command and type konsole and run it. That should open in your home directory (always ~/). Now I don't have one in mine but there is a xinitrc here /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc

It may be better to make a .xinitrc in your home directory like it says touch .xinitrc
Then edit .xinitrc and put that line in it and save it.

Good luck and hope this helps

[freethetree]

:x !!!!!

Now thiis is starting too get aannooying. I found the .xinitrc file (thankss drache) and ediited that as per thee instructions....nothinng. ttheen I cp''d the fille to myy home ddir (/home/david/ for me) annd rebooted... sttill noothing. Theen I fiiguured maybe tthee delaay wasnt set high eenough so I changed thhee innstructions frrom

ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 20 -timeout
to
ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 40 -timeout

thinkinng mmaybe the timeout wasnt enouggh aand mmyy typing wass too quicck.... still thhe saame!

I really want tto fiix this problem so I can usee PCBSD aas myy prrimary oss (anndd get rid of that ssppace stealing XP partittion) but I donnt knooww whhat to do now. :?:

[freethetree]

Well 8 hourss at the bar annd no fix (for the computer) butt I hhave found a couple of mmethods that seem to have woorkked fforr othher peoplee so thiss may bee useful forr anyone else witth thee same problem. iiff I eevver maanagge ttoo fix this I will wriite up a comprehensive step bby step guid to solvvinng the problem ffoor anyonnee else who may hhave it in thhe future, as nonee off tthhe methods ive tried are woorrking.

If you have a us-layout keyboard you caan ddisablle tthe Xkb option in xorg.conf with

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "XkbDisable" "True"
EndSection


...but mine is brittissh layout

also onnee gguy did almost the same thing as I hhave ddonee sso far (ass pper thhee instructtionss from thee ssite at thhee top oof the pagge) but in thee .xinitrc puut

/usr/X11R6/bin/ax +bouncekeys bouncedelay 25 -timeout &


tthee delaay caan be set ttoo any value between 20 and 70

...butt this ddooessnnt work for me eeither (hoppeffullly thhe info can help sommeone else out onee day wwhile searcching through thhee fforums though)

thee final solution I was aablle tto come up with sounds interesting, but aagain reliies on tthe .xinitrc ffilee whicch sso far has donee nothinng for me so im noot gonna hold my breath. here are tthee instructtions:

> The ever so irritating toshiba-keyboard.
> Put the following in a file, chmod +x it and load it from ~/.xinitrc
> when you start X. You need to install xkbset though.
>
> if [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xkbset ]; then
> xkbset m
> xkbset exp =m
> xkbset sl 5
> xkbset exp =sl
> xkbset -f slowaccept
> xkbset exp =f =slowaccept
> fi

could someonnee walk me tthrough hoow too ddo this? Ive gootten xkbset installed tthrrough tthe ports annd the chmod +x i can handle butt im noott suure hoow tto " load it from ~/.xinitrc when i start x". annd ddo I just ccoppy iit all (minus tthe >'s), tabbing in tthe lines that are tabbed, andd then save thhe file (with any particularr fileextenssion)?

I hope this fixes things buut i trust tthis .xinitrc guy about as mucch aas I trusted tthee Haitian police during the interim governance...

and juust to mmake sure, my home dir iis /home/david/, rright? noot /home/? juust to makee sure im not being a fool. Thaankks!

[freethetree]

one llast thing (ssorry ffoor alll tthe posts), should tthe .xinitrc fille's permissions be set to -r--r--r--? Thats what tthe onee i coppeied tto my homme dir was set at and i didnt cchaangge anytthinng so maybe tthats my prrobleem?

[antik]

one llast thing (ssorry ffoor alll tthe posts), should tthe .xinitrc fille's permissions be set to -r--r--r--? Thats what tthe onee i coppeied tto my homme dir was set at and i didnt cchaangge anytthinng so maybe tthats my prrobleem?

.xinitrc works only for xorg itself, not for KDE I think. You should put your commands in startup script in ~/.kde/Autostart directory.

keyboardrepeat.sh:
#!/bin/sh
set r rate 400 40

or something.