pipe symbol(|) and @ symbol not available from keyboard

solarisonmac · Post by **solarisonmac** » 11. Oct 2008, 13:40

Hello everyone,

I have installed VBox2.02 on MacBook(Mac OSX 10.4.11), then installed Solaris10 as guest upon Vbox2.02 with German Keyboard layout.
But within Solaris I can never input pipe | and email @ symbol from keyboard. Without pipe | symbol, the solaris system is almost useless.

Has anyone successful installed solaris10 as guest OS upon Vbox on MacOSX
with available pipe symbol from keyboard ?

any help?

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Jickel · Post by **Jickel** » 15. Oct 2008, 12:21

I have more or less the same problem, but in a Linux guest and a Swedish keyboard. Basically you need to use the option (=alt) key for certain characters on this stupid keyboard, and this combination isn't recognized in any of the other OS:es I've tried on it, virtualized or not. XP in boot camp and VB uses ctrl+alt, but this isn't recognized in Archlinux.

There must be a solution out there somewhere.

ink · Post by **ink** » 29. Oct 2008, 15:19

Have you tried using "kbd -s" to set a keyboard type in the Solaris client VM ?

dwt · Post by **dwt** » 1. Nov 2008, 14:30

Same Problem here - on my german keyboard @ and | are just not sent to the vm.

Is there any solution to this yet?

by the way: I use Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on my mac host.

Post by **tkwm** » 1. Nov 2008, 18:18

Have a look into my post under
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... =backslash
using the third method mentioned should work with every OS. Not perfect, but it works.
And many OSes do have an equivalent to windows charmap-utility.

Hope this helps (a little bit)

aquarius · Post by **aquarius** » 1. Nov 2008, 23:08

These links helped me a lot to find some keys.
It seems that inside VirtualBox Mac keyboards work similar to BootCamp.
So this info is useful for any guest OS (not just windows)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1167
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1220

For (ubuntu) linux guests these links may be helpful:
Warning: I only recommend the keyboard tips, don't try the other modifications in your virtual linux because they deal with "real Mac hardware".

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBo ... rd%20Fixes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBo ... %20layouts

(The second link also describes a general way for any linux using xmodmap)

aquarius

dwt · Post by **dwt** » 5. Nov 2008, 00:27

I didn't get the pipe and at symbols to work at all - still.

Even with the tips in this thread.

Has any of you got it working with these tips?

solarisonmac · Post by **solarisonmac** » 5. Nov 2008, 22:41

I think at this point VB is still in its infant phase.

IMO : the combination of Solaris guest on MacOS host just DOES NOT work because of lacking pipe (vertical line) symbol from keyboard input.
Maybe in 1-2 years Sun can solve the problem.

The only workaround I can try is trying to get network bridging between
MacOS host and Solaris guest working, so that we can telenet solaris from mac terminal. In the mac terminal we can input pipe symbol from keyboard anyway.

But have been anyone successful in network bridging between
MacOS host and Solaris guest so that solaris can be telneted from mac host?

Thierry Minet · Post by **Thierry Minet** » 19. Nov 2008, 12:34

I'm running VB 2.0.4 and MS Windows XP Home SP3 as guest OS on a MacBook with Mac OS X 10.5.5 and German keyboard layout.

The following key combinations seem to do the trick for me:

right alt Q = @
right alt ß = \
right alt ^ = |
right alt E = €

alternatively, you can also use ctrl left alt in stead of right alt, e.g.:

ctrl left alt Q = @
ctrl left alt ß = \
ctrl left alt ^ = |
ctrl left alt E = €

virtualbox.org

pipe symbol(|) and @ symbol not available from keyboard

pipe symbol(|) and @ symbol not available from keyboard

Possible workaround

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