Dvorak on Solaris

UPDATE : this is a non-issue now if you install Opensolaris then read this site (which also mentions the ‘asdf hack’).

One thing I really need in any OS is support for the Dvorak keyboard layout.
I had pretty bad RSI a few years back and it flares up after any
length of time on a QWERTY layout.

I can’t change the Xserver config because other people use the laptop (besides, I couldn’t find it. Turns out there isn’t an xorg.conf on Solaris by default – it guesses your settings at X startup).

Solaris GNOME Java Desktop System doesn’t have an option to
change your keyboard layout. In any case, I was using CDE to save memory
(I’ll save my switch to dwm for another post).

xmodmap to the rescue

Here is my best effort -
load it with a straightforward ’xmodmap .dvorak.sun’ and it’ll last til you exit your
X session.

If you want every CDE login to use this keymapping, stick

  # save the existing keymapping
  xmodmap -pke > $HOME/.qwerty.sun
  xmodmap $HOME/.dvorak.sun

at the end of $HOME/.dtprofile.

You can just ‘xmodmap $HOME/.qwerty.sun’ (or kill the X session) to revert to your old bindings.