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HTML rendering created 2024-06-26 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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LOADKEYS(1) General Commands Manual LOADKEYS(1)
loadkeys - load keyboard translation tables
loadkeys [OPTION]... FILENAME...
loadkeys --default
loadkeys --mktable
loadkeys --bkeymap
loadkeys --parse
The program loadkeys reads the file or files specified by
FILENAME.... Its main purpose is to load the kernel keymap for
the console. You can specify console device by the -C (or
--console ) option.
If the -d (or --default ) option is given, loadkeys loads a
default keymap, probably the file defkeymap.map either in
@DATADIR@/keymaps or in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char. (Probably
the former was user-defined, while the latter is a qwerty
keyboard map for PCs - maybe not what was desired.) Sometimes,
with a strange keymap loaded (with the minus on some obscure
unknown modifier combination) it is easier to type `loadkeys
defkeymap'.
The main function of loadkeys is to load or modify the keyboard
driver's translation tables. When specifying the file names,
standard input can be denoted by dash (-). If no file is
specified, the data is read from the standard input.
For many countries and keyboard types appropriate keymaps are
available already, and a command like `loadkeys uk' might do what
you want. On the other hand, it is easy to construct one's own
keymap. The user has to tell what symbols belong to each key. She
can find the keycode for a key by use of showkey(1), while the
keymap format is given in keymaps(5) and can also be seen from
the output of dumpkeys(1).
If the input file does not contain any compose key definitions,
the kernel accent table is left unchanged, unless the -c (or
--clearcompose ) option is given, in which case the kernel accent
table is emptied. If the input file does contain compose key
definitions, then all old definitions are removed, and replaced
by the specified new entries. The kernel accent table is a
sequence of (by default 68) entries describing how dead
diacritical signs and compose keys behave. For example, a line
compose ',' 'c' to ccedilla
means that <ComposeKey><,><c> must be combined to <ccedilla>.
The current content of this table can be see using `dumpkeys
--compose-only'.
The option -s (or --clearstrings ) clears the kernel string
table. If this option is not given, loadkeys will only add or
replace strings, not remove them. (Thus, the option -s is
required to reach a well-defined state.) The kernel string table
is a sequence of strings with names like F31. One can make
function key F5 (on an ordinary PC keyboard) produce the text
`Hello!', and Shift+F5 `Goodbye!' using lines
keycode 63 = F70 F71
string F70 = "Hello!"
string F71 = "Goodbye!"
in the keymap. The default bindings for the function keys are
certain escape sequences mostly inspired by the VT100 terminal.
If the -m (or --mktable ) option is given loadkeys prints to the
standard output a file that may be used as /usr/src/linux‐
/drivers/char/defkeymap.c, specifying the default key bindings
for a kernel (and does not modify the current keymap).
If the -b (or --bkeymap ) option is given loadkeys prints to the
standard output a file that may be used as a binary keymap as
expected by Busybox loadkmap command (and does not modify the
current keymap).
loadkeys automatically detects whether the console is in Unicode
or ASCII (XLATE) mode. When a keymap is loaded, literal keysyms
(such as section) are resolved accordingly; numerical keysyms are
converted to fit the current console mode, regardless of the way
they are specified (decimal, octal, hexadecimal or Unicode).
The -u (or --unicode) switch forces loadkeys to convert all
keymaps to Unicode. If the keyboard is in a non-Unicode mode,
such as XLATE, loadkeys will change it to Unicode for the time of
its execution. A warning message will be printed in this case.
It is recommended to run kbd_mode(1) before loadkeys instead of
using the -u option.
-a --ascii
Force conversion to ASCII.
-h --help
loadkeys prints its version number and a short usage
message to the programs standard error output and exits.
-p --parse
loadkeys searches and parses keymap without action.
-q --quiet
loadkeys suppresses all normal output.
-V --version
loadkeys prints version number and exits.
Note that anyone having read access to /dev/console can run
loadkeys and thus change the keyboard layout, possibly making it
unusable. Note that the keyboard translation table is common for
all the virtual consoles, so any changes to the keyboard bindings
affect all the virtual consoles simultaneously.
Note that because the changes affect all the virtual consoles,
they also outlive your session. This means that even at the login
prompt the key bindings may not be what the user expects.
@DATADIR@/keymaps
default directory for keymaps.
/usr/src/linux/drivers/char/defkeymap.map
default kernel keymap.
dumpkeys(1), keymaps(5)
This page is part of the kbd (Linux keyboard tools) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.kbd-project.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this
manual page, send it to [email protected]. This page was
obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/legionus/kbd.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-05-20.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
kbd 6 Feb 1994 LOADKEYS(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dumpkeys(1), kbd_mode(1), localectl(1), setleds(1), setmetamode(1), showkey(1), unicode_start(1), ioctl_console(2), reboot(2), keymaps(5), vconsole.conf(5), setkeycodes(8), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8)
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HTML rendering created 2024-06-26 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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