Keyboard configuration in console
Keyboard mappings (keymaps) for virtual console, console fonts and console maps are provided by the kbd package (it should already be installed), which also provides many low-level tools for managing virtual console.
Contents
Viewing keyboard settings
You can use the following command to view keyboard configuration:
$ localectl status
System Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8 LC_COLLATE=C VC Keymap: cz-qwertz X11 Layout: cz
Setting keyboard layout
Unlike XKB keyboard layout, which is composed of multiple components, the keyboard layout for virtual console has only one component. Usually one keymap file corresponds to one keyboard layout (the include statement can be used to share common parts and a keymap file can contain multiple layouts with some key combination used for switching). The keymap files are stored in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/
directory tree. You can use the following command to list all available keymaps:
$ localectl list-keymaps
Persistent configuration
High-level configuration can be done in /etc/vconsole.conf
, which is read by systemd on start-up. The KEYMAP
variable is used for specifying keymap. If the variable is empty or not set, the us
keymap is used as default value. See man 5 vconsole.conf
for all options. For example:
/etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=cz-qwertz ...
For convenience, localectl may be used to set console keymap. It will change the KEYMAP
variable in /etc/vconsole.conf
and set the keymap for current session. For example:
$ localectl set-keymap --no-convert keymap
See man 1 localectl
for details.
Temporary configuration
Of course it is possible to set a keymap just for current session. This is useful for testing different keymaps, solving problems etc.
The loadkeys tool is used for this purpose, it is used internally by systemd when loading the keymap configured in /etc/vconsole.conf
. It can be used very simply for this purpose:
# loadkeys keymap
See man 1 loadkeys
details.
Introduction and basic configuration
The virtual console (keyboard mapping, console font, and console map) is configured in /etc/vconsole.conf
. It defines what keymap the keyboard is in the virtual consoles. Keytable files are provided by the kbd package. An example vconsole.conf
is shown below:
/etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=us FONT=lat9w-16 FONT_MAP=8859-1_to_uni
us
keymap are used if KEYMAP
and FONT
are empty or not set.Another way to set the keyboard mapping (keymap) is using localectl:
# localectl set-keymap de
See man 1 localectl
and man 5 vconsole.conf
for details.