Created attachment 3313 [details] [review]
xkbdesc-ibr-kz-20050918-1643.diff

Baurzhan, probably I missed something: there are 3 variants in your layout, but
you add only one entry to xml file. Are you sure your patch is complete?

Well, they were not quite ready. But I agree, better 80% complete than never done.

Created attachment 3351 [details] [review]
xkbdesc-ibr-kz-20050921-2025.diff

I committed the stuff, as a starting point. But I made some changes:

1. I changed the group names and descriptions - in order for them to match
2. I took freedom to change "Russian" to "Cyrillic", hope you don't mind.

Now, my new question is: are variants KZ1 and KZ2 really used? Or is it just
hacks for some minor group of hackers? I am a bit suspitious - it looks like
they mirror each other...

About renaming -- I do mind, since the layouts are for the Cyrillic Kazakh
script. "Cyrillic and Kazakh" doesn't make sense, it is in this case like
"Cyrillic and Russian". I know that the name I used is not the best one, but
it's the name the users know from a popular Windows driver. Dropping "via AltGr"
makes the description useless, since without that notice, it isn't clear what is
the difference between them.

About KZ1 and KZ2 -- these, and a couple of other layouts, were widely used
until Windows XP (?) was released. I think Windows ships with the standard
layout, but I'm not sure about CYRILLIC LETTER IO. The layouts do differ, and
are not symmetric.

The problem with the standard layout is that it is unusable for Kazakh -- it's
difficult to type digits in Kazakh mode. It's a big problem for people typing
mostly in Kazakh, thus the motivation for alternative layouts. Hope one of them
will be standardized soon. I personally use a modified standard layout with
letters on digit keys, but accessible via AltGr. I consider submitting it for
contrib.

Does this answer your questions?

About renaming - I got your point. Fixed back to Russian.
About AltGr - in the layout themselves there is NOTHING about switching to 3rd
and 4th shift levels using AltGr. So people may choose absolutely different key
to access these extra levels. So, why should we hardcode the switcher name into
variant name (especially if this switcher is not specified)?

Hello Sergey,

about AltGr -- I see your point. I know very little about xkb, the name I
suggested is how I implemented things for the Linux console. I would be glad if
you could suggest a name implying how that "extra" keys are accessed. If not,
let's leave it as it is and wait for the user feedback.

With kind regards,
Baurzhan.

ok, so I am closing this one - and when we get unhappy users with better name -
we'll open new bug, if you don't mind