Linux loadkeys Command with Practical Examples

Introduction

In this lab, you will learn how to use the loadkeys command in Linux to change and customize the keyboard layout on your system. The loadkeys command allows you to load a keyboard translation table from a file, enabling you to adapt the keyboard to your preferred layout. You will start by understanding the basic usage of the loadkeys command, then explore how to change the keyboard layout and customize it to suit your needs. This lab provides practical examples and step-by-step guidance to help you effectively manage your system's keyboard configuration.

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Understanding the loadkeys Command

In this step, we will learn about the loadkeys command in Linux. The loadkeys command is used to load a keyboard translation table from a file. This allows you to change the keyboard layout on your system.

To begin, let's check the current keyboard layout using the loadkeys command:

loadkeys -c

Example output:

keycode  30 = a A
keycode  31 = b B
keycode  32 = c C
...

This output shows the current keyboard mapping for your system. The keycode represents the key on the keyboard, and the characters after the = represent the corresponding characters that will be generated when that key is pressed.

Next, let's explore some of the options available with the loadkeys command:

• loadkeys -d: Loads the default keyboard map.
• loadkeys fr: Loads the French keyboard map.
• loadkeys de-latin1: Loads the German keyboard map.

You can find a list of available keyboard maps by running ls /usr/share/keymaps/. These map files are typically located in the /usr/share/keymaps/ directory.

Changing the Keyboard Layout Using loadkeys

In this step, we will learn how to change the keyboard layout using the loadkeys command.

First, let's check the available keyboard layouts on our system:

ls /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/

Example output:

ad-latin1.map.gz  fr-latin1.map.gz  sv-latin1.map.gz
be2-latin1.map.gz  it2.map.gz        trq.map.gz
br-abnt2.map.gz   lt.map.gz         uk.map.gz
cf.map.gz         nl.map.gz         us.map.gz
de-latin1.map.gz  no-latin1.map.gz  wangbe.map.gz

To change the keyboard layout to French, we can use the following command:

sudo loadkeys fr-latin1

Example output:

Loading /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/fr-latin1.map.gz

Now, let's verify that the keyboard layout has been changed:

loadkeys -c

You should see the output reflecting the new French keyboard layout.

To change the keyboard layout back to the default, you can use:

sudo loadkeys -d

This will load the default keyboard map.

Customizing the Keyboard Layout with loadkeys

In this step, we will learn how to customize the keyboard layout using the loadkeys command.

First, let's create a custom keyboard map file. We'll use the us.map file as a starting point and modify it to our needs.

sudo cp /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/us.map ~/project/custom_keymap.map

Now, open the custom_keymap.map file in a text editor:

nano ~/project/custom_keymap.map

In the file, you can find the mapping for each key. For example, the mapping for the 'a' key is:

keycode  30 = a A

Let's change the mapping for the 'a' key to map it to 'x' instead:

keycode  30 = x X

Save the file and exit the editor.

Now, let's load the custom keyboard map:

sudo loadkeys ~/project/custom_keymap.map

Example output:

Loading ~/project/custom_keymap.map

To verify the changes, let's check the keyboard layout again:

loadkeys -c

You should see the custom mapping for the 'a' key, where it is now mapped to 'x'.

Summary

In this lab, we learned about the loadkeys command in Linux, which is used to load a keyboard translation table from a file and change the keyboard layout on the system. We started by understanding the loadkeys command and how to check the current keyboard layout. Then, we explored various options to change the keyboard layout, such as loading the default keyboard map, French keyboard map, and German keyboard map. Finally, we learned how to change the keyboard layout to a specific layout, such as French, and verify the changes.

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