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> no xkb; it's bloat when console keymaps suffice

So on the pro side, that sounds like you could just configure your keyboard layout once and have it work everywhere, which would be nice. On the con side, I'm not aware of a way to switch console keymaps on the fly; setxkbmap lets me configure a hotkey that switches layouts instantly, which is really handy. Or am I misunderstanding the impact?

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That'd be a non-starter to me. I switch between US and Norwegian layouts depending on which language I'm writing, and while I could "just" map the additional Norwegian characters to other combinations, I don't want to.

Ideally you'd have a programmable keyboard. That way it keeps the OS configuration down to a absolute minimum. It is just easier that way. Especially if you want to use multiple OSes and such things.

Well yes, ideally I would prefer to be able to implement things in firmware (especially chording), but since I mostly use laptops I'm a bit stuck. And yes, I can probably use things like keyd to work around it, but it seems a bit unreasonable to require that level of mucking around in order to switch keyboard layouts.

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