How to setup international keyboard in X Window with Xmodmap and XKB

by Juraj Sipos, xvudpapc@savba.sk

How to setup international keyboard in Linux or Unix with Xmodmap and XKB written by (c) Juraj Sipos. The Xmodmap is a file that XFree86 reads in order to give you a keyboard layout. This solution will work for you in setting up any international keyboard for (Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, CorelLinux) Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and possibly every Unix that uses XFree86. The advantage of this howto is that it is not architecture specific and will work on all other systems.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Copyright
1.2. Revision history
1.3. Introduction

2. Setting up international keyboard in X Window System with Xmodmap and XKB

2.1. Quick start

3. How to do it: this experimental solution is a legacy issue - do not read it if you use newer systems

3.1. Xmodmap theory and Xmodmap solution
3.2. Experimental .Xmodmap sample file for the Slovak language typewriter layout

4. Xmodmap theory and Xmodmap solution

4.1. .Xmodmap sample file for the Slovak language typewriter layout

5. Character sets

5.1. ISO-8859-2 (ISO Latin2) character set

6. How this Xmodmap solution works on various systems

6.1. SuSE 6.4 and 7.0
6.2. SuSE 7.0 (Xfree86 3.3.6, KDE 1.x), SuSE 8.0
6.3. Mandrake Linux 7.2
6.4. Mandrake 8.1
6.5. RedHat 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 (XFree86 3.3.6 and older)
6.6. RedHat 7.2, RedHat 8.0, Slackware 8.1
6.7. FreeBSD 3.1 and 3.2
6.8. FreeBSD 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5
6.9. FreeBSD 4.6.
6.10. Corel Linux 1.0 and 1.1

7. ISO* specifications

8. Some national Xmodmap files

8.1. German
8.2. Hungarian
8.3. Czech
8.4. Polish
8.5. French
8.6. Croatian/Slovenian
8.7. Lithuanian keyboard (AZERTY layout)
8.8. Polish

9. Troubleshooting and some Xmodmap tips

9.1. Troubleshooting
9.2. Tips

10.1. Other information on internationalization
10.2. Links to some non ISO8859-1 fonts

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		Introduction