Why does showkey show a different keycode compared to xev?

Question

Looking for an answer I came across this question. There's something like this:

The keycode X uses and the keycode the kernel uses are OFF BY 8 for "historical reasons". So take 97 - 8 = 89 and use 89 with the setkeycodes command (again as root):

Does anyone know what the historical reasons are and why the codes differ by 8?

For some reason, GitHub copilot created a link to here – Sid110307 Nov 29 '21 at 06:13 — Sid110307, Nov 29 '21 at 06:13

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '14 at 06:31

6

The X11 protocol defines a keycode as a 8-bit value in the range [8,255]. The value 0 is a special value for AnyKey - I don't remember if anything uses 1-7, or they were simply reserved for future special cases.

answered Mar 26 '14 at 06:31

alanc

2,994

Why does showkey show a different keycode compared to xev?

1 Answers1