Hello, oui. I used ibus for years, but was annoyed by some buggy behavior and now I only use a python/bash script I wrote. The script allows you to use custom two-character combinations to trigger unicode characters (e.g., a` triggers à and c; triggers ç). One could expand the script to also have 3+ character triggers if this were necessary.

You just install the handful of dependencies, customize the script with your unicode characters and triggers, run the script, and start typing. Script changes nothing on your machine and leaves no trace when you stop it from its taskbar icon.

I realize that for a language like Chinese something like my script isn't going to work given that you'd need to define triggers for thousands of unicode characters, but depending on the language (e.g., for French) it might be a nice option.

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1639

I couldn't find anything suitable, so I rolled my own alternative to ibus. It's a simple bash script that allows typing diacritic either before or after the letter, user's choice. The script does not use "preedit text", so no characters ever disappear.

Getting the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install xvkbd python3 && sudo pip3 install pynput

You also need to install yad, which is not in the Devuan Jessie repositories but is easy to find (e.g., by clicking on your architecture at the bottom of this page).

pynput didn't work for me at first because one of its dependencies, the "six" module, was outdated. So, to be safe:

sudo pip3 install --upgrade six

Well, here's the script. It should "just work" once you have all the dependencies. You only need to alter it if you want to add or change the special characters section.

#!/bin/bash

# International keyboard (alternative to ibus for x11)
# Author: Bruno "GNUser" Dantas
# License: GPLv3
# Dependencies: 
#    sudo apt-get install xvkbd python3 yad
#    sudo pip3 install pynput
# Usage: 
#    - Change the triggers and unicode sequences in "watch_for_triggers" function to suit your needs
#    - Run this script as regular user to turn on the international keyboard
#    - Stop the script--via taskbar icon or, if running in terminal, Control+c--to clean up without a trace

main()
{
    create_pipe
    create_keylogger # writes to pipe
    create_taskbar_icon
    watch_for_triggers # reads from pipe, replaces user-defined character combinations with unicode characters
}

create_pipe()
{
    pipe=/tmp/international
    rm -f $pipe
    mkfifo $pipe
    exec 3<>$pipe
}

create_keylogger()
{
    # to troubleshoot the keylogger: 
    # 1. copy the python code below into a file foo
    # 2. comment out the three fifo lines, uncomment the print line in log_it function
    # 3. in a terminal: python3 /path/to/foo
    # 4. type stuff outside the terminal and watch terminal
    echo "
from pynput import keyboard
from pynput import mouse
import os

fifo_write = open('$pipe', 'w')

def log_it(output):
    fifo_write.write(output + '\n')
    fifo_write.flush()
    #print(output)

# get initial capslock state
exit_code = os.system('''xset q 2>/dev/null | grep -q -E 'Caps Lock: +on' ''')
if exit_code == 0:
    capslock_in_effect = True
else:
    capslock_in_effect = False

# this function runs each time a key is pressed:
def on_press(key): 
    global capslock_in_effect
    output = str(key)
    if output == 'Key.caps_lock': # if capslock pressed, toggle capslock state
        capslock_in_effect = not capslock_in_effect
    if not output.startswith('Key'): # special keys start with 'Key' and can be logged as-is
        output = output[1:-1] # remove quotes around character
        if capslock_in_effect:
            output = output.swapcase()
    if not output.startswith('Key.shift'): # don't log shift keys (e.g., while loop expects a~ not aKey.shift~)
        log_it(output)

# this function runs each time a mouse button is pressed:
def on_click(x, y, button, pressed):
    button = str(button)
    if pressed and button == 'Button.left':
        log_it('Key.mousebutton_left')

# start listening
with mouse.Listener(on_click=on_click) as listener:
    with keyboard.Listener(on_press=on_press) as listener:
        listener.join()
" >/tmp/tiny-keylogger
    python3 /tmp/tiny-keylogger &
}

echo "$(basename $0)" >/tmp/scriptname # so cleanup function can find this script's name when called from yad
cleanup()
{
    echo "Cleaning up..."
    pkill -f International # kill taskbar icon                     
    pkill -f tiny-keylogger # kill keylogger
    pkill -KILL "$(cat /tmp/scriptname)" # kill this script         
}
trap cleanup EXIT HUP TERM INT

create_taskbar_icon()
{
    export -f cleanup
    yad --notification --image='accessories-character-map' --text='International Keyboard' \
        --no-middle --menu="Stop!bash -c cleanup" --command='' &
}

replace()
{
    xvkbd -xsendevent -text "\b\b\[U$1]" # send two backspaces then desired unicode character
}

watch_for_triggers()
{
    # endless loop (it reads from a fifo pipe, so never encounters EOF)
    while read current_char; do
        echo "${previous_char}${current_char}" # for debugging while running in terminal
        case "${previous_char}${current_char}" in
          # Portuguese
            'A`') replace 00C0;;
            'a`') replace 00E0;;
            "A'") replace 00C1;;
            "a'") replace 00E1;;
            'A^') replace 00C2;;
            'a^') replace 00E2;;
            'A~') replace 00C3;;
            'a~') replace 00E3;;
            "E'") replace 00C9;;
            "e'") replace 00E9;;
            'E^') replace 00CA;;
            'e^') replace 00EA;;
            "I'") replace 00CD;;
            "i'") replace 00ED;;
            'O`') replace 00D2;;
            'o`') replace 00F2;;
            "O'") replace 00D3;;
            "o'") replace 00F3;;
            'O^') replace 00D4;;
            'o^') replace 00F4;;
            'O~') replace 00D5;;
            'o~') replace 00F5;;
            "U'") replace 00DA;;
            "u'") replace 00FA;;
            'U;') replace 00DC;;
            'u;') replace 00FC;;
            'C;') replace 00C7;;
            'c;') replace 00E7;;
          # Esperanto
            'Cx') replace 0108;;
            'CX') replace 0108;;
            'cx') replace 0109;;
            'Gx') replace 011C;;
            'GX') replace 011C;;
            'gx') replace 011D;;
            'Hx') replace 0124;;
            'HX') replace 0124;;
            'hx') replace 0125;;
            'Jx') replace 0134;;
            'JX') replace 0134;;
            'jx') replace 0135;;
            'Sx') replace 015C;;
            'SX') replace 015C;;
            'sx') replace 015D;;
            'Ux') replace 016C;;
            'UX') replace 016C;;
            'ux') replace 016D;;
        esac
        previous_char=$current_char
    done <&3
}

main

Thanks, fsmithred. I took a look at xscreensaver's code. I'm too lazy to parse through all that

I found a solution. It requires that python3 and the pyuserinput module (which contains pymouse) be installed.

#!/usr/bin/python3
from pymouse import PyMouseEvent
import os
class ClickDetector(PyMouseEvent):
    def __init__(self):
        PyMouseEvent.__init__(self)
    def click(self, x, y, button, press):
        '''Send signal when left click is pressed.'''
        if button == 1:
            if press:
                os.system('pkill -USR1 somescript')
ClickDetector().run()

If the above is running in the background, my mouse works normally and any time I left-click on anything a SIGUSR1 is sent to somescript.

Perhaps you can adapt the above and use it instead of xscreensaver for your purposes, although as-is it does not respond to keyboard input.

I updated post #20 with a massively overhauled version of my script, which features:

1. Organization (go functions!)
2. Extensive, optional sanity checks--mostly to help "future me" get things working on my (helper) end
3. @fungus - Default/initial variable values less prone to optical illusions

BTW, I tried the script with firewall active on my machine and only port 22 open. Script worked. Script also worked with router forwarding nothing but port 22. I think this proves that the remote desktop session is traveling within the SSH tunnel.

Ralph, please forgive me for asking a newbie question (I don't have much experience with SSH).

Can you confirm that using this setup the VNC connection would be encrypted?

@ralph.ronnquist - Haha, I think I found enough magic to go around! Read on...

There was one reason to keep pursuing the old-fashioned way: With gitso the connection is unencrypted. So I kept pushing and finally figured it out. It's a bit complicated--involves leaving two terminals open on each end--but it works, requires no configuration on helpee's end, is through an encrypted tunnel, and uses only free software. Totally worth my splitting headache

Setup:
- Packages on gnuser/helper's computer: ssh and vinagre
- Configuration on gnuser/helper's router: Forward ports 22 and 5500 to gnuser/helper's machine

- Necessary packages on motherinlaw/helpee's computer: ssh and x11vnc
- Configuration steps on motherinlaw/helpee's computer/router: none

Steps:
1. Helpee opens up a terminal:

motherinlaw$ x11vnc

2. Helpee opens up a second terminal:

motherinlaw$ ssh -R 7000:localhost:22 gnuser@<gnuser's public ip address>
[motherinlaw types gnuser's password]

Helpee leaves her two terminals open and waits.

3. Helper opens up a terminal:

gnuser$ ssh motherinlaw@localhost -p 7000
[gnuser enters motherinlaw's password]

4. Helper opens up a second terminal:

gnuser$ ssh -L 5901:localhost:5900 motherinlaw@localhost -p 7000
[gnuser enters motherinlaw's password again]

Helper leaves his two terminals open.

5. Now helper goes to application menu, internet submenu, and selects "Remote Desktop Viewer" (that's how vinagre shows up in the menus).
Click "Connect"
Choose "VNC" protocol
in Host window, type: localhost:5901
click Connect

Bingo!

I played around for many hours today. I was able to establish a reverse SSH connection, but couldn't get VNC to work over it.

However, I managed to get gitso to work and it is perfect for what I need: Nothing for my MIL to do other than type in my public IP address (which I'd tell her over the phone)

The problem was that despite forwarding of port 5500 being setup in my router and, on my laptop, "nmap <mylocalip>" showing 5500 open while gitso is running, a remote desktop connection could not be established. Also, canyouseeme.org kept saying that port 5500 was closed. I was on the verge of calling my ISP to see if they were blocking traffic on this port for some reason.

After hours going round and round, typing this into a terminal on my laptop fixed everything:

sudo iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 5500 -j ACCEPT

It's odd that nmap lies about the port being open. It's also odd that the kernel was blocking traffic on that port even though I'm not running a firewall on the laptop. (EDIT: It turned out that there was a firewall running on my laptop after all. "sudo ufw disable" turned it off, and now I no longer need the above iptables command.)

To summarize, gitso turned out to be exactly what I was looking for, and this is how to make it work:
1. Get a static local ip for your machine (many ways to do this--either through router or, probably easier, through your network manager)
2. Configure your router to forward port 5500 to your machine's static local ip (how to do this varies depending on your router firmware)
3. Make sure you don't have a firewall running on your machine (e.g., if "sudo ufw status" says firewall is active, do this: "sudo ufw disable")
4. Install gitso from Devuan's official repository, start it (in MATE, it shows up in the Internet submenu), chose "Give support"
5. Ask your friend who needs help to install gitso, start it, choose "Get help", and enter your public ip address (output of "wget http://ipinfo.io/ip -q -O -" on your machine)

@ralph.ronnquist @fsmithred - I'd love to learn that approach, catch is that I need to figure out how to set it up with reverse tunneling, the way gitso does it. I can't expect MIL to be of any help on her end. I'm going to have to chew on this.

I really appreciate all your input. Until this thread, I didn't even know that doing a reverse connection with all the configuration on the "helper" end was possible. That's exactly what I'm looking for!

Many thanks!

Thanks, nixer, but I'm looking for free as in free speech (libre), not free as in free beer (gratis). The combination of libre + easy to use is what's making the search challenging.

If all I needed were gratis + easy to use, I'd go with Teamviewer. The problem is that Teamviewer is not libre (i.e., it's proprietary/closed source) so I don't trust it enough to install it on someone else's computer.

Money is not the issue. The issue is trust.

Okay, so the xhci_hcd kernel module (previously known as simply xhci) has long been known to cause GNU/Linux to have insomnia. Create /etc/pm/config.d/00sleep_well_baby_gnu with only this in it...

SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci_hcd"

...and problem vanishes! The above unloads the troublesome kernel module just before system tries to suspend. The module is automatically reloaded when the system resumes, so I had no problem using my ExpressCard after resuming.

@ralph.ronnquist - Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Update: I booted into my Debian Jessie partition on this same machine and tried suspending several times. No problems on either AC or battery power.