Changing TTY keyboard layout on a server?

Question

I use 12.04 Server in command line mode (no X installed), and I would like to change the keyboard layout. How can I do this?

Mike, would you consider changing the accepted answer? It looks like there is a much better answer now than the originally accepted answer. — Azendale, Apr 24 '16 at 18:29

score 269 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 03 '12 at 09:05

269

After trying sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-data, I found out that it doesn't work after a reboot.

However,

sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

does work after reboot and also has more options.

More info here.

edited Jul 03 '12 at 09:05

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Jul 03 '12 at 02:28

Göran Törnquist

2,691
2
12
2

2

How do I find out what kind of keyboard I have? It's the Windows 8 Surface pro one. What's the US standard one? – CMCDragonkai Apr 09 '14 at 02:16
26

This is the correct answer, not the other one. – Clayton Dukes Jun 19 '14 at 15:55
2

Older Ubuntu releases, such as Lucid Lynx (10.04), don't have the keyboard-configuration package. Göran's link has the correct answer for these: sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup If your cursor keys don't work as expected in the ncurses UI, try those on the numeric keypad. – lbo Oct 09 '16 at 08:43
Worked for me in Ubuntu Server 20.04 with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ For some reason I had to be connected to the internet if I wanted the command to work properly and for the changes to stay active even after rebooting. – Niko Jan 01 '21 at 06:52

score 66 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 27 '14 at 11:58

66

Please try the following command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-data

If it says you don't have the package, then install console-data with:

sudo apt-get install console-data

More about Locale Configuration: LocaleConf - Community Help Wiki

edited Oct 27 '14 at 11:58

blade19899

26,704

answered Jun 24 '12 at 15:31

PetterF

773

21

Like that other answer mentions: This does not carry over a reboot. (tested in 12.04.1 LTS) – JonnyJD Aug 01 '13 at 20:11
1

A hint for people who want to change their keyboard layout during console install: Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add 'universe' to the listed URL. Otherwise it can't find consol-data – Tobias F. Meier Aug 19 '13 at 17:46

score 47 · Answer 3 · edited May 06 '20 at 09:59

47

Try:

loadkeys es (Spanish)
loadkeys pt (Portuguese)
loadkeys br (Brazilian Portuguese)
loadkeys ch (Swiss German)

edited May 06 '20 at 09:59

JSON C11

334

answered Oct 27 '14 at 10:51

user342789

487

2

doesn't work on my Ubuntu 18.04, keyboard layout in the console remains the same – Andrea Turbiglio Mar 21 '19 at 14:42
1

loadkeys de for german keyboard layout worked for me, thx! – RoBeaToZ Nov 25 '19 at 20:05
loadkeys ru worked for russian, ctrl + shift to toggle between english and russian – user3804598 Apr 10 '22 at 18:20

Rok Strniša · Answer 4 · 2022-11-22T10:56:07.087

17

For Ubuntu Desktop, you can use:

Set US layout: setxkbmap us
Set GB layout: setxkbmap gb

edited Nov 22 '22 at 10:56

answered Feb 12 '15 at 11:38

Rok Strniša

311

11

This commands only works for Ubuntu Desktop, not on Ubuntu Server. – blkpws Aug 20 '15 at 16:44

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 17 '19 at 22:07

6

For me this did it

localectl set-keymap de-latin1

answered Dec 17 '19 at 22:07

MrQuadrupleX

61

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered May 04 '17 at 10:05

5

I just had this issue on a console mode only VM.

The solution in my case was editing /etc/default/keyboard and changing the

XKBLAYOUT="de"

line (a german VM) to

XKBLAYOUT="us"

to work with my US keyboard and then rebooting.

answered May 04 '17 at 10:05

flaviodesousa

151

I believe this only works with a GUI. Also - the reboot is not really required, you can also set the variable in the current terminal by simply overwriting it. XKBLAYOUT="us" – SaAtomic Jun 09 '17 at 08:28
1

It also works on Ubuntu 20 (focal) – ATorras Nov 02 '21 at 13:41

score 4 · Answer 7 · edited May 14 '15 at 11:20

4

Using Ubuntu 13.10 Server as a Virtual Machine in VirtualBox, this worked for me:

(no GUI, only command-line mode)

Default keyboard layout was French, 'AZERTY'

loadkeys us (English, was not 'en' for me, as some docs state)

Note that you will likely have to run the command as sudo loadkeys us.

edited May 14 '15 at 11:20

guntbert

13,134

answered May 09 '15 at 00:21

Kevin Nadsady

149
3

You might want to edit your last line and use sudo instead of root, since root is not the recommended method for commands needing administrator priviledges. – RCF May 09 '15 at 03:34
2

I could not get loadkeys us to work, even with sudo. It was saying that the file "us" couldn't be found. This on my Raspberry Pi. – jocull Sep 25 '16 at 17:48

Michael · Answer 8 · 2019-11-08T11:08:00.730

1

I succeeded today configuring this on my Raspberry Pi 3 via:

generating the required locale locale-gen de_DE.UTF-8
calling loadkeys de

edited Nov 08 '19 at 11:08

answered Nov 08 '19 at 10:16

Michael

11

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 05 '23 at 20:20

0

so many potential solutions, but here is what helped me in the end:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

if it failes with something like locales not found, install the package locales and rerun the above command.

answered Jun 05 '23 at 20:20

Yevgeniy M.

267

Changing TTY keyboard layout on a server?

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