KBD

Introduction

The kbd project contains tools for managing the Linux console: keymaps, console fonts, virtual terminals, keyboard modes, and related kernel interfaces.

kbd does not configure keyboard layouts for X11 or Wayland sessions. When built with XKB support, however, loadkeys can convert selected XKB layout descriptions into Linux virtual console keymaps. See XKB layout conversion for details.

This distribution contains no binaries - the sources depend on the kernel version - compile them yourself.

Common tasks

loadkeys

Load a console keymap or change the keyboard layout used by the Linux virtual console.

loadkeys --xkb-layout

Convert an XKB layout description into a Linux virtual console keymap when kbd is built with XKB support.

setfont

Load a console font and, when needed, an associated Unicode mapping table.

dumpkeys

Inspect the current keyboard translation tables in a form that can be edited or reused.

showkey

Display scancodes, keycodes, or keysyms produced by keyboard input.

chvt

Switch between Linux virtual terminals from a command line or script.

Download

The latest stable version of kbd can always be found on:

• https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kbd/
• https://github.com/legionus/kbd/releases

Documentation

The canonical documentation sources are kept in the docs/ directory of the kbd repository. This site publishes generated HTML views for selected documents and links to the sources that should be changed through the normal patch review process.

Users

• Manual pages for kbd commands and file formats.
• XKB layout conversion for Linux virtual console keymaps.
• The Linux keyboard and console HOWTO.
• The fonts README.

Contributors

• How to contribute.
• How to build kbd from a git checkout.
• Pull request workflow notes.
• Programming language notes.

Reference

• The libkeymap API documentation.
• Font formats.
• Character set and keysym reference files.

Historical documents

• Scancodes (old version).

Getting involved

Repository Access

To access the git repository:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/legion/kbd.git

You can also use the https protocol for these repositories.

Bug reporting

You can use several options:

• The most preferred method is a mailing list.

  E-Mail:

  kbd@lists.linux.dev

  Archive:

  https://lore.kernel.org/kbd

• If you think that github is the future, then use it: https://github.com/legionus/kbd/issues
• Bug reports with sensitive or private information: Alexey Gladkov <gladkov.alexey@gmail.com>.

NLS (PO Translation)

To translate kbd's messages into other languages, please see the Translation Project page for kbd.

License

All files in this package may be freely copied under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2, or at your option any later version - except possibly for the restrictions mentioned in the directory consolefonts.