152

I use 12.04 Server in command line mode (no X installed), and I would like to change the keyboard layout. How can I do this?

1
  • Mike, would you consider changing the accepted answer? It looks like there is a much better answer now than the originally accepted answer.
    – Azendale
    Apr 24, 2016 at 18:29

9 Answers 9

269

After trying sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-data, I found out that it doesn't work after a reboot.

However,

sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

does work after reboot and also has more options.

More info here.

4
  • 2
    How do I find out what kind of keyboard I have? It's the Windows 8 Surface pro one. What's the US standard one? Apr 9, 2014 at 2:16
  • 26
    This is the correct answer, not the other one. Jun 19, 2014 at 15:55
  • 2
    Older Ubuntu releases, such as Lucid Lynx (10.04), don't have the keyboard-configuration package. Göran's link has the correct answer for these: sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup If your cursor keys don't work as expected in the ncurses UI, try those on the numeric keypad.
    – lbo
    Oct 9, 2016 at 8:43
  • Worked for me in Ubuntu Server 20.04 with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ For some reason I had to be connected to the internet if I wanted the command to work properly and for the changes to stay active even after rebooting.
    – Niko
    Jan 1, 2021 at 6:52
66

Please try the following command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-data

If it says you don't have the package, then install console-data with:

sudo apt-get install console-data

More about Locale Configuration: LocaleConf - Community Help Wiki

2
  • 21
    Like that other answer mentions: This does not carry over a reboot. (tested in 12.04.1 LTS)
    – JonnyJD
    Aug 1, 2013 at 20:11
  • 1
    A hint for people who want to change their keyboard layout during console install: Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add 'universe' to the listed URL. Otherwise it can't find consol-data Aug 19, 2013 at 17:46
47

Try:

loadkeys es (Spanish)
loadkeys pt (Portuguese)
loadkeys br (Brazilian Portuguese)
loadkeys ch (Swiss German)

3
  • 2
    doesn't work on my Ubuntu 18.04, keyboard layout in the console remains the same Mar 21, 2019 at 14:42
  • 1
    loadkeys de for german keyboard layout worked for me, thx!
    – RoBeaToZ
    Nov 25, 2019 at 20:05
  • loadkeys ru worked for russian, ctrl + shift to toggle between english and russian Apr 10, 2022 at 18:20
17

For Ubuntu Desktop, you can use:

  • Set US layout: setxkbmap us
  • Set GB layout: setxkbmap gb
1
  • 11
    This commands only works for Ubuntu Desktop, not on Ubuntu Server.
    – blkpws
    Aug 20, 2015 at 16:44
6

For me this did it

localectl set-keymap de-latin1

5

I just had this issue on a console mode only VM.

The solution in my case was editing /etc/default/keyboard and changing the

XKBLAYOUT="de"

line (a german VM) to

XKBLAYOUT="us"

to work with my US keyboard and then rebooting.

2
  • I believe this only works with a GUI. Also - the reboot is not really required, you can also set the variable in the current terminal by simply overwriting it. XKBLAYOUT="us"
    – SaAtomic
    Jun 9, 2017 at 8:28
  • 1
    It also works on Ubuntu 20 (focal)
    – ATorras
    Nov 2, 2021 at 13:41
4

Using Ubuntu 13.10 Server as a Virtual Machine in VirtualBox, this worked for me:

(no GUI, only command-line mode)

Default keyboard layout was French, 'AZERTY'

loadkeys us (English, was not 'en' for me, as some docs state)

Note that you will likely have to run the command as sudo loadkeys us.

2
  • You might want to edit your last line and use sudo instead of root, since root is not the recommended method for commands needing administrator priviledges.
    – RCF
    May 9, 2015 at 3:34
  • 2
    I could not get loadkeys us to work, even with sudo. It was saying that the file "us" couldn't be found. This on my Raspberry Pi.
    – jocull
    Sep 25, 2016 at 17:48
1

I succeeded today configuring this on my Raspberry Pi 3 via:

  • generating the required locale locale-gen de_DE.UTF-8
  • calling loadkeys de
0

so many potential solutions, but here is what helped me in the end:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

if it failes with something like locales not found, install the package locales and rerun the above command.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .