Arch Teapot Notes 12-02-18

Multimedia Keys
We learned that multimedia keys are available by using xev. To use it, start xev | grep keycode and press the buttons in question.

Notice: if your window manager evaluates the pressed keycodes, nothing will show up.

The shown keycodes should be placed in ~/.Xmodmap and loaded on X startup by xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap.

Example (ThinkPad X61):

The terminal based program showkeys won’t work, since kernel keycodes differ from X11.

ArchWiki Xmodmap

These keysyms can be used for your favorite window manager‘s configuration.

Example (awesome):

PulseAudio
PulseAudio is a sound system enabling us to control application volumes individually and use other computers soundcards over the network.

Recommended packages:
 * pulseaudio (the daemon, required)
 * pavucontrol (GTK based mixer application)
 * paprefs (GTK based configuration tool)
 * pulseaudio-alsa

With pulseaudio-alsa, applications may use a virtual ALSA device for output. They show up as regular PulseAudio clients and there is an ALSA mixer channel to control the volume.

Note: in order to discover remote soundcards, one has to start avahi-daemon!