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I downloaded the Debian live standard (command line flavour, without X and any window managers) CD image, then booted into the live disk. With my first Arch Linux reflex I typed loadkeys dvorak (hand-picking on my blank key-cap keyboard while peeking at the QWERTY US layout on my laptop). No avail, I got an error saying cannot open file dvorak. A simple googling brought up loads of irrelevant links. /usr/share/keymaps is empty. This other question mentions dpkg-reconfigure but it is not even on the path of the live boot, at least no such command is recognized. Even if it was available, I would still consider it a highly unpleasant experience to type anything more than a few characters to get to my preferred keyboard layout. I mean to set up the internet connection, type WiFi password, configure proxy, add package sources, install packages, and then load the keymaps!? The very first thing I want when booting into a live OS (rescue disk!!) is to get the keyboard right.

Is this just me and this is really such an awkward, rarely used feature for Debian? ...or I missed something blatantly obvious?

Community
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Daniel Dinnyes
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5 Answers5

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I ran into the same Problem. Here is how i solved it:

# become root
sudo su

# configure keyboard
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

# restart keyboard setup
/etc/init.d/keyboard-setup restart

It's a mayor PITA typing this in a keyboard layout you aren't used to but AFAIK there is no simpler solution.

Christoph Winkler
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  • Thanks for the answer. I worked through it myself too somehow. I remember using `dpkg-reconfigure` as well, but not the `restart` bit. It is definitely a Mayor P.I.T.A. In almost all other distros I could use `loadkeys dvorak`. I will mark this as the answer after testing it. – Daniel Dinnyes Jan 14 '14 at 12:35
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I ran into the same problem with debian-live-8.7.1 (no X).

dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

did not change anything in my case. It seems debian-live does not include the binary loadkeys, which seems necessary to change the console keymap. So I had to fetch (from here) and install kbd and (console-data or (xkb-data and console-setup-linux and console-setup)) to finally get the desired keymap in console.

otb
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  • Thank you. My X server stopped working after upgrading to Debian Stretch. Installing console-data didn't work but your very last suggestion worked. – gouessej Jun 22 '17 at 23:47
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I ran into the same problem today, using debian-live-11.4.0-i386-standard+nonfree.iso. Using the following two commands got me a german keymap and proper utf8 text:

localectl set-keymap de-latin1
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

Interestingly, the keymap set with the first command was not immediately applied; but apparently reconfiguring console-setup afterwards did. I suppose using keymaps different from de-latin1 should work along the same lines.

Frank
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  • Welcome to Super User! Before answering an old question having an accepted answer (look for green ✓) as well as other answers ensure your answer adds something new or is otherwise helpful in relation to them. Here is a guide on [answer]. There is also [tour] for the site tour, and [help] for the help center. – help-info.de Jul 15 '22 at 12:06
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Debian 8 5 0 live:setting up to toggle back & forth between qwerty & dvorak:

Top left corner of screen click on Activities.

Then in the search box in middle top of the screen type in Region & Language.

Click on Input source.

Click on English US to highlight it.

Click on plus button (+) to bring up Add Input Source section.

Click on English to highlight it.

Then use the wheel on your mouse to scroll down to English (dvorak).

Click the Add button.

With English Dvorak highlighted click on the small keyboard symbol below & to the right of the now highlighted English Dvorak to see the chosen Dvorak layout.

Now by typing the combination shift – super key (the one with the microsoft flag) – space bar key you can toggle on the fly back & forth between 'qwerty & dvorak.

Peter Boyle
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I don't know if there's some way to automate it but these commands should work:

setxkbmap us dvorak

or

setxkbmap gb -variant dvorak

or different...?

Note that if you had some custom keys set with xmodmap they will be overwritten, therefore if you need them, execute xmodmap after setxkbmap.

user2044638
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