keyboard

KEYBOARD(5) Console-setup User's Manual KEYBOARD(5)

NAME

   keyboard - keyboard configuration file

DESCRIPTION

   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:

          http://www.xfree86.org/current/XKB-Config.html

   Other possible readings are:

          https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_KeyBoard_extension
          http://pascal.tsu.ru/en/xkb/
          http://www.charvolant.org/~doug/xkb/

   The complete XKB-specification can be found on

          http://xfree86.org/current/XKBproto.pdf

   The file keyboard consists of variable settings in POSIX format:

          VARIABLE=VALUE

   Only one assignment is allowed per line.  Comments (starting with '#') are also allowed.

OPTIONS

   The following variables can be set.

   XKBMODEL
          Specifies the XKB keyboard model name.  Default: pc105 on most platforms.

   XKBLAYOUT
          Specifies the XKB keyboard layout name. This is usually the country or language type of the keyboard. Default: us on most platforms

   XKBVARIANT
          Specifies the XKB keyboard variant components. These can be used to further specify the keyboard layout details. Default: not set.

   XKBOPTIONS
          Specifies the XKB keyboard option components.  Options usually relate to the behavior of the special keys (<Shift>, <Control>, <Alt>, <CapsLock>, etc.)  Default: not set.

   BACKSPACE
          Determines  the  behavior of <BackSpace> and <Delete> keys on the console.  Allowed values: bs, del and guess.  In most cases you can specify guess here, in which case the cur
          rent terminal settings and the kernel of your operating system will be used to determine the correct value.  Value bs specifies VT100-conformant behavior: <BackSpace> will gen
          erate ^H (ASCII BS) and <Delete> will generate ^?  (ASCII DEL).  Value del specifies VT220-conformant behavior: <BackSpace> will generate ^?  (ASCII DEL) and <Delete> will gen
          erate a special function sequence.

   KMAP   Usually this variable will be unset but if you don't want to use a XKB layout on the console, you can specify an alternative keymap here.  Specify a file that  is  suitable  as
          input for loadkeys(1) on Linux or for kbdcontrol(1) on FreeBSD.

FILES

   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.

NOTES

   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).

BUGS

   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.

EXAMPLES

   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

SEE ALSO

   setupcon(1), ckbcomp(1), console-setup(5), loadkeys(1), kbdcontrol(1)

console-setup 2011-03-17 KEYBOARD(5)