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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 documenta‐
tion how to use them. Description of all possible values for these options can be found
in the file xorg.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 for most platforms.
XKBLAYOUT
Specifies the XKB keyboard layout name. This is usually the country or language
type of the keyboard. Default: us for 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 behav‐
ior 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 current 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 generate ^H (ASCII BS) and <Delete> will generate ^? (ASCII DEL).
Value del specifies VT220-conformant behavior: <BackSpace> will generate ^? (ASCII
DEL) and <Delete> will generate 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/xorg.lst. In most cases, in /usr/share/keymaps/ or
/usr/share/syscons/keymaps/ you will find several keymaps that can be used with the vari‐
able 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
BUGS
When a triple-layout is used, 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 (only the first and the second
layout are taken into account).
The option grp:shifts_toggle is not supported.
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 QW‐
ERTY layout (us) and Greek (gr) layout. The option grp_led:scroll is ignored on the con‐
sole 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 (com‐
pose: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)
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