How to set the console keymap on Debian

To set the console keymap on Debian you need to use the install-keymap command with one argument, which is the keymap to install.

All of the available keymaps live in /usr/share/keymaps

So to install the UK keymap use the following command:

install-keymap /usr/share/keymaps/i386/querty/uk.kmap.gz

This will copy the keymap to /etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz (You could do this manually)

To temporarily set a keymap you can use the loadkeys command as follows:

loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/querty/uk.kmap.gz

Last updated: 27/01/2006