[enriquto]

I was somehow expecting the answer to be: "Yes, I do all my keyboard input from inside emacs, including running the shell".

For linux-portable keyboard configuration, you may find that an unholy mix of setxbmap (to set up the grand options) and xmodmap (to modify a few particular keys) is what works best for you. At least it does for me.

> sometimes I'm SSH-ing in from a machine that isn't even Linux.

ah! the horror!