Using alternative keyboards - Linux

Linux

Generally, you choose your keyboard mapping when you install your operating systems. For example, I have installed a Linux with English as the user interface language and a Swedish keyboard.

With a Swedish keyboard, you can use the accent keys to enter characters such as áàâä ñ etc. Users of this keyboard will be familiar with using the AltGr key - as it is needed to enter [] {} € µ and other characters. You can even get a cedilla with AltGr-, c  or AltGr-, C - to produce ç and Ç. Note that the combination AltGr-, is the AlGr key together with a comma. You can get ß with AltGr-s.

It is also possible to cut and paste from the question into the answer box, as was done in the figure below to enter the left double chevron symbol. However, it is even easier to enter this with AltGr-z which yields « while AltGr-x produces » -- so one has a wide selection of characters that can be entered without changing keyboards.

Having multiple keyboard mappings (layouts) in Linux

Ubuntu support keymappings per Window, see https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/keyboard-layouts.html.en Links to an external site.

In OpenSuSE with KDE you can set up alternative keyboard layouts with multiple keyboard layouts via "Configure Desktop"->"Input Devices"->"Keyboard"->"Layouts" - and switch layouts with the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+K (of course you change this shortcut via ). You configure the keyboard layouts with "Settings"->"System Settings" ->"Configure" - then click on "Input Devices" as shown below:

This gives you the interface shown below:

Now you click "Add" to add a new keyboard layout - click "Preview" to get a preview of the layout. For example, the layout in US English is shown below:

Of course, there is a wide variety of layouts to choose from - consider for example the APL layout shown below: