1
KEYBOARD(5) Console-setup User's Manual KEYBOARD(5)
6
keyboard - keyboard configuration file
9
The keyboard file describes the properties of the keyboard. It is read
10
by setupcon(1) in order to configure the keyboard on the console. In
11
Debian systems the default keyboard layout is described in
12
/etc/default/keyboard and it is shared between X and the console.
14
The specification of the keyboard layout in the keyboard file is based
15
on the XKB options XkbModel, XkbLayout, XkbVariant and XkbOptions.
16
Unfortunately, there is little documentation how to use them. Descrip-
17
tion of all possible values for these options can be found in the file
20
You might want to read "The XKB Configuration Guide" by Kamil Toman and
23
http://www.xfree86.org/current/XKB-Config.html
25
Other possible readings are:
27
http://pascal.tsu.ru/en/xkb/
28
http://www.charvolant.org/~doug/xkb/
30
The complete XKB-specification can be found on
32
http://xfree86.org/current/XKBproto.pdf
34
The file keyboard consists of variable settings in POSIX format:
38
Only one assignment is allowed per line. Comments (starting with '#')
43
The following variables can be set.
47
Specifies the XKB keyboard model name. Default: pc105 for most
52
Specifies the XKB keyboard layout name. This is usually the
53
country or language type of the keyboard. Default: us for most
58
Specifies the XKB keyboard variant components. These can be used
59
to further specify the keyboard layout details. Default: not
64
Specifies the XKB keyboard option components. Options usually
65
relate to the behavior of the special keys (<Shift>, <Control>,
66
<Alt>, <CapsLock>, etc.) Default: not set.
70
Determines the behavior of <BackSpace> and <Delete> keys on the
71
console. Allowed values: bs, del and guess. In most cases you
72
can specify guess here, in which case the current terminal set-
73
tings and the kernel of your operating system will be used to
74
determine the correct value. Value bs specifies VT100-confor-
75
mant behavior: <BackSpace> will generate ^H (ASCII BS) and
76
<Delete> will generate ^? (ASCII DEL). Value del specifies
77
VT220-conformant behavior: <BackSpace> will generate ^? (ASCII
78
DEL) and <Delete> will generate a special function sequence.
81
KMAP Usually this variable will be unset but if you don't want to use
82
a XKB layout on the console, you can specify an alternative
83
keymap here. Specify a file that is suitable as input for load-
84
keys(1) on Linux or for kbdcontrol(1) on FreeBSD.
88
The standard location of the keyboard file is /usr/local/etc/de-
89
fault/keyboard. Description of all available keyboard models, layouts,
90
variants and options is available in /usr/lo-
91
cal/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst. In most cases, in
92
/usr/share/keymaps/ or /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/ you will find sever-
93
al keymaps that can be used with the variable KMAP.
97
In Debian systems, changes in /etc/default/keyboard do not become imme-
98
diately visible to X. You should either reboot the system, or use
100
udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change
104
When a triple-layout is used, i.e. a layout with three XKB groups, then
105
the group toggling happens in the following way: Group1 -> Group2 ->
108
On FreeBSD triple- and quadruple-layouts are not supported (only the
109
first and the second layout are taken into account).
111
The option grp:shifts_toggle is not supported.
115
The following configuration will give you the standard US QWERTY layout
116
(us). The key <Menu> will act as a compose key (compose:menu) and
117
<CapsLock> will act as third control key (ctrl:nocaps).
121
XKBOPTIONS=compose:menu,ctrl:nocaps
123
In the following configuration the right <Alt> key (grp:toggle) will
124
toggle between US QWERTY layout (us) and Greek (gr) layout. The option
125
grp_led:scroll is ignored on the console but in X in means to use the
126
ScrollLock keyboard led as indicator for the current layout (US or
131
XKBOPTIONS=grp:toggle,grp_led:scroll
133
In the following configuration the <Control>+<Shift> key combination
134
will toggle (grp:ctrl_shift_toggle) between French keyboard (fr) with-
135
out dead keys (nodeadkeys) and British (gb) "Dvorak" (dvorak) keyboard.
136
The right <Win> key will be a compose-key (compose:rwin) and the right
137
<Alt> key will function as AltGr (lv3:lalt_switch).
140
XKBVARIANT=nodeadkeys,dvorak
141
XKBOPTIONS=grp:ctrl_shift_toggle,compose:rwin,lv3:ralt_switch
145
setupcon(1), ckbcomp(1), console-setup(5), loadkeys(1), kbdcontrol(1)
149
console-setup 2011-03-17 KEYBOARD(5)