setxkbmap - set the keyboard using the X Keyboard Extension

setxkbmap [ args ] [ layout [ variant [ option ... ] ] ]

The setxkbmap command maps the keyboard to use the layout determined by the options specified on the command line.

An XKB keymap is constructed from a number of components which are compiled only as needed. The source for all of the components can be found in /usr/lib/X11/xkb.

-help

Prints a message describing the valid input to setxkbmap.

-compat name

Specifies the name of the compatibility map component used to construct a keyboard layout.

-config file

Specifies the name of an XKB configuration file which describes the keyboard to be used.

-display display

Specifies the display to be updated with the new keyboard layout.

-geometry name

Specifies the name of the geometry component used to construct a keyboard layout.

-keymap name

Specifies the name of the keymap description used to construct a keyboard layout.

-layout name

Specifies the name of the layout used to determine the components which make up the keyboard description. Only one layout may be specified on the command line.

-model name

Specifies the name of the keyboard model used to determine the components which make up the keyboard description. Only one model may be specified on the command line.

-option name

Specifies the name of an option to determine the components which make up the keyboard description; multiple options may be specified, one per -option flag. Note that setxkbmap summarize options specified in the command line with options was set before (saved in root window properties). If you want only specified options will be set use the -option flag with an empty argument first.

-print

With this option the setxkbmap just prints component names in a format acceptable by an xkbcomp (an XKB keymap compiler) and exits. The option can be used for tests instead of a verbose option and in case when one need to run both the setxkbmap and the xkbcomp in chain (see below).

-rules file

Specifies the name of the rules file used to resolve the request layout and model to a set of component names.

-symbols name

Specifies the name of the symbols component used to construct a keyboard layout.

-synch

Force synchronization for X requests.

-types name

Specifies the name of the types component used to construct a keyboard layout.

-variant name

Specifies which variant of the keyboard layout should be used to determine the components which make up the keyboard description. Only one variant may be specified on the command line.

If you have an Xserver and a client shell running on different computers and XKB configuration files sets on those machines are different you can get problems specifying a keyboard map by model, layout, options names. The thing is the setxkbcomp converts these names to names of XKB configuration files according to files that are on the client side computer. Then it sends the file names to the server where the xkbcomp has to compose a complete keyboard map using files which the server has. Thus if the sets of files differ significantly the names that the setxkbmap generates can be unacceptable on the server side. You can solve this problem running the xkbcomp on the client side too. With the -print option setxkbmap just prints the files names in an appropriate format to its stdout and this output can be piped directly to the xkbcomp input. For example, a command

setxkbmap us -print | xkbcomp - $DISPLAY

makes both step on the same (client) machine and loads a keyboard map into the server.

keyboards(1)

/usr/lib/X11/xkb