KEYBOARD(5) | Console-setup User's Manual | KEYBOARD(5) |
keyboard - keyboard configuration file
The keyboard file describes the properties of the keyboard. It is read by setupcon(1) in order to configure the keyboard on the console. In Debian systems the default keyboard layout is described in /etc/default/keyboard and it is shared between X and the console.
The specification of the keyboard layout in the keyboard file is based on the XKB options XkbModel, XkbLayout, XkbVariant and XkbOptions. Unfortunately, there is little documentation how to use them. Description of all possible values for these options can be found in the file base.lst.
You might want to read “The XKB Configuration Guide” by Kamil Toman and Ivan U. Pascal:
Other possible readings are:
The complete XKB-specification can be found on
The file keyboard consists of variable settings in POSIX format:
Only one assignment is allowed per line. Comments (starting with '#') are also allowed.
The following variables can be set.
The standard location of the keyboard file is /etc/default/keyboard. Description of all available keyboard models, layouts, variants and options is available in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst. In most cases, in /usr/share/keymaps/ or /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/ you will find several keymaps that can be used with the variable KMAP.
In Debian systems, changes in /etc/default/keyboard do not
become immediately visible to X. You should either reboot the system, or use
udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change
In order to activate the changes on the console, run setupcon(1).
When a triple-layout is used on the console, i.e. a layout with three XKB groups, then the group toggling happens in the following way: Group1 -> Group2 -> Group1 -> Group3.
On FreeBSD triple- and quadruple-layouts are not supported on the console (only the first and the second layout are taken into account).
The option grp:shifts_toggle is not supported on the console.
The following configuration will give you the standard US
QWERTY layout (us). The key <Menu> will
act as a compose key (compose:menu) and
<CapsLock> will act as third control key
(ctrl:nocaps).
XKBLAYOUT=us XKBVARIANT= XKBOPTIONS=compose:menu,ctrl:nocaps
In the following configuration the right
<Alt> key (grp:toggle) will toggle between
US QWERTY layout (us) and Greek (gr) layout.
The option grp_led:scroll is ignored on the console but in X in means
to use the ScrollLock keyboard led as indicator for the current layout (US
or Greek).
XKBLAYOUT=us,gr XKBVARIANT= XKBOPTIONS=grp:toggle,grp_led:scroll
In the following configuration the
<Control>+<Shift> key combination will toggle
(grp:ctrl_shift_toggle) between French keyboard (fr) without
dead keys (nodeadkeys) and British (gb) “Dvorak”
(dvorak) keyboard. The right <Win> key will be a
compose-key (compose:rwin) and the right <Alt>
key will function as AltGr (lv3:lalt_switch).
XKBLAYOUT=fr,gb XKBVARIANT=nodeadkeys,dvorak XKBOPTIONS=grp:ctrl_shift_toggle,compose:rwin,lv3:ralt_switch
setupcon(1), ckbcomp(1), console-setup(5), loadkeys(1), kbdcontrol(1)
2011-03-17 | console-setup |