Changing keyboard leyouts after boot in 6.2

[mecho]

I have a serious problem. I am using en_US keyboard most of the time, but ocasionally I have to write some documents in my language using bulgarian phonetic keyboard and I need to be able to change between us and bg keyboards on the fly.
Is there any way I can change keyboards.
I tryed fbxkb, but it gives me this error at start :
fbxkb : X error: BadAtom (invalid Atom parameter)

[mecho]

I figured it out - it's a bit complicated at least for me. If someone has the same problem - post a reply and I will post the solution in the forum

[mimosa]

I have the German-language version of Adriane 6.2, and a Brazilian Portuguese keyboard (there are two main types, this is the kind with deadkey accents). Cheatcode options change the language *and* keyboard to the same ~locale~ (those were supposed to be quotation marks, btw). If there were a Brazilian Portuguese option, that would be ok if it had the right Brazilian keyboard, but as far as I can see there isn`t a cheatcode for this.

A more recent post complained about the lack of KDE functionality in Adriane, and maybe this has something to do with it. Suggested solutions I have found online for similar problems tell you to go to KMenu - Settings - Control Panel - Regional something, and I can find neither settings nor control panel. If it did exist, maybe it still wouldn`t allow you to solve this type of problem where the language and the keyboard are different, and they are less common languages or keyboards.

Mecho, please do tell me the solution you found. One that wasn`t ~complicated~ would be even better (as Knoppix is a live CD) if anyone has any ideas!

[mecho]

Sorry for the late answer. I am not sure if I understand correctly. Are you running Knoppix from CD or USB ? And if I understand right you want to boot Knoppix with German locale, but be able to switch between German and Brazilian Portuguese layouts. Or you want to boot in German with Brazilian keyboard layout.
If you run Knoppix from USB it is a simple thing, but if you run it from CD you have to remaster it which is a lengthy process.

[mecho]

If you are running from CD you can manually set your keyboard every time you boot Knoppix. The command would be something like:
setxkbmap -layout "br"

You might have to specify your laptop model too:

example: setxkbmap -layout "br" -model "thinkpad"

Provided that there is brazilian fonts available in the CD of which I am not sure

[mimosa]

Thanks mecho - that has solved my problem completely. No fonts needed, just the right "éã>ç@)=" in the right places. I live in Brazil, so the keyboard is Brazilian. It'd be good if Knoppix included cheatcodes for less common languages.

Good luck with your problem. Btw, I suspect it won't help (apart from anything else, probably only works on Windows), but might be of interest, have a look at this site:

http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/

which is a program that changes your keymap and also offers help with input, for a variety of scripts including the likes of Arabic. I used it for Ancient Greek, which has a number of tricky diacritics.

[mecho]

If anyone needs keyboard layout changing in persistent Knoppix - simply install the necessary local fonts, then create in any location a shell script containing the setxkbmap command with layout switching option:

Example: setxkbmap -option '' 'us,bg' ',phonetic' 'grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll'

then create .desktop file in /etc/xdg/Autostart which is targeting the shell script and optionally lxde panel may be configured to display the layout switcher.
In the above example Alt+Shift triggers the switch between layouts

[GizmoPlushie]

I don't know how to create "shell script" either. Sorry for my n00b question, but I'm a newbie and an extremely curious one :)

[mecho]

Make a file some-name.sh. PLace your script inside. Example:

#!/bin/bash

setxkbmap -option '' 'us,bg' ',phonetic' 'grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll'

Save it and and type in terminal: chmod +x /path-to-directory/some-name.sh to make it executable
Path-to-directory is the directory where you stored your file and some-name.sh is the name of your file. Name it any way you want. To run it at startup follow my previous message.
setxkbmap sets the keyboard map in X - you can choose your languages where 'us,bg' is phonetic is my cyrillic keyboard layout. Notice the COMA before it. It tells to setxkbmap that it applies to the second option - in my case BG. And the last section is for the keyboard switcher. I chose Alt+Shift to toggle between keyboard layouts

[GizmoPlushie]

So I assume, when I need and want use my Polish keyboad only, I type 'pl' not 'us,pl'?


I chose Alt+Shift to toggle between keyboard layouts

I think it's possible to load it permanently at startup and there is no need to switch between, when there is only one layout?

[mecho]

Yes, if you do not need us keyboard layout you can boot with a cheatcode you dont need to switch. You can even add it permanently in your syslinux.cfg to avoid typing at every boot

[mecho]

If anyone has another a bit more elegant solution for problem in knoppix - please post it here. I know this is not the right way to do it, but it works

[GizmoPlushie]

Yes, if you do not need us keyboard layout you can boot with a cheatcode you dont need to switch. You can even add it permanently in your syslinux.cfg to avoid typing at every boot

The only problem what I have is my desktop has horizontally positioned icons and everything (including right mouse on it) is being blocked until I open up root console and place for example some background that is knoppix.jpg in lib.

Tried no3d - no effect.

There are no effects either. I depicted it in some other topic, anyway thanks try that syslinux.cfg with root access (cause I can't - as I never used Linux based sys's). I was stupid W follower :(