VMware Communities: Message List - Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

Re: Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

EugeneKim — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:54:35 GMT

Hi all,

I've been hit (and annoyed as well) by this problem, and, after a bit of mucking around, have found a way to get around this.

The trick is: Although it does not matter whether you first press Ctrl or Cmd, make sure you let go Ctrl first, then Cmd.

To illustrate, there are good orders:

Ctrl down, Cmd down, Ctrl up, Cmd up
Cmd down, Ctrl down, Ctrl up, Cmd up

These, however, are not:

Ctrl down, Cmd down, Cmd up, Ctrl up
Cmd down, Ctrl down, Cmd up, Ctrl up

This is admittedly annoying, and certainly takes some getting used to (after all, we all have an existing habit on how we press the key combo which we may have to change), but once you make one of the good sequences a habit, you won't be bothered by this problem ever again.

HTH,
Eugene

Re: Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

ashleymoran — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:46:47 GMT

Thanks! Turning off the mac keyboard shortcuts doesn't help (had already tried that), but the key-swapping hack works a treat. It's a shame it can't be done per-VM though.

If I get chance I will submit this as an issue to the FreeBSD team.

Re: Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

bgertzfield — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:44:12 GMT

Try Control-Command.

You can also write to the FreeBSD folks, asking them not to treat the GUI (Windows/Command) key as an escape.

Re: Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

rcardona2k — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:42:18 GMT

I would try to disable Preferences > Enable MacOS keyboard shortcuts, if that doesn't change anything, you can swap the alt and cmd keys using the configuration option in this thread: tip: swap option and command keys (or windows and alt keys) in VM

An alternative to using the primary console is to use the built-in VNC server to access the Guest OS screen -- this is documented in A Power User's Guide to VMware Fusion

Fusion sends escape to FreeBSD when pressing command key

ashleymoran — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 22:43:32 GMT

When installing FreeBSD, if you press the command key as part of the Cmd-Ctrl combination to lose focus on the VM, Fusion sends an escape sequence to the VM. The escape key is interpreted as "cancel" by sysinstall. This makes it excruciatingly difficult to install FreeBSD! The issue does not appear to arise after the system is installed and booted normally.

I can't see any reference to this problem on the internet, but it has happened to me on two machines (Mac mini Core Duo, iMac Core 2 Duo). I have seen it on FreeBSD 6.2 and PC-BSD 1.4 (based on a recent -STABLE build). Has anyone else experienced it, and is there a fix/workaround?