View source for Localization/Changing Keyboard Layout

== Changing the keyboard configuration file ==
The keyboard layout settings in an XO is stored in the file ''/etc/sysconfig/keyboard''. The easiest way to change the keyboard layout is to edit this file. However, please note that any OS upgrade will reset the keyboard configuration back to the original edition.

=== Understanding the contents of the the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file ===
A typical keyboard configuration file looks like

<pre>
KEYTABLE="us"
XKB_MODEL="olpc"
XKB_LAYOUT="us"
XKB_VARIANT="olpc"
</pre>

Typically the values of ''XKB_LAYOUT'' and ''XKB_VARIANT'' need to be changed, the other two variables can be left as is. The value of ''XKB_LAYOUT'' signifies the layout to be used, by convention it is usually country specific (eg: us, tr, mn, in, etc). The ''XKB_VARIANT'' value indicates the variant to be used, eg: the "us" keyboard may have a qwerty variant, and a dvorak variant.

=== Choosing the right values for ''XKB_LAYOUT'' and ''XKB_VARIANT'' ===

The list of keyboards that are supported (or are in the process of being supported) are listed at the [[Mfg-data# | Manufacturing Data page]]. For each layout, there is a corresponding value in the ''KL'' and ''KV'' columns. The ''KL'' value should go in ''XKB_LAYOUT'', and the ''KV'' value should go in ''XKB_VARIANT''. For example, for the [[OLPC Mongolian Keyboard | Mongolian Keyboard]], the ''/etc/sysconfig/keyboard'' looks like

<pre>
KEYTABLE="us"
XKB_MODEL="olpc"
XKB_LAYOUT="us,mn"
XKB_VARIANT="olpc2,olpc"
</pre>

=== Activating the new keyboard layout ===

Once the requisite changes are made to ''/etc/sysconfig/keyboard'', a restart of sugar with the ctrl-alt-erase keypress should activate the new keyboard layout. Before restarting sugar, all activities must be stopped.

[[Category:Keyboard]]
[[Category:Language support]]
[[Category:Languages (international)]]
[[category:localization]]

=== Toggling between two keyboard layouts ===

The key sequence to toggle between two keyboard layouts may be set with XKBOPTIONS.

In this example pressing both left and right Shift keys will toggle the keyboard.

<pre>
KEYTABLE="us"
XKB_MODEL="olpc"
XKB_LAYOUT="us,mn"
XKB_VARIANT="olpc2,olpc"
XKBOPTIONS="grp:shifts_toggle"
</pre>

See also:  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Khmer_Keyboard#OLPC_section_of_the_XKB_symbol_file