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 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 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 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  gener-
	      ate 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 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  op-
       tion  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) with-
       out  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)