keyboard language different from console language?

It used to be easy to have a different language in console mode to the keyboard, just edit

/etc/init.d/keymap.sh

and run

/etc/init.d/keymap.sh reload

but between 3.3 and 3.6 (or maybe between kernel 2.4 and 2.6) things got changed: there no longer seems to be an appropriate line in /etc/init.d/keymap.sh to edit!

I'd like to be able to use an Italian keyboard (although the language I use mainly is English). Of course, I can do this easily in Kde, but in console mode?

Ideas gratefully recieved......................

What happens with loadkeys it ? If it works, add it to some startscript
Or have a look at: man install-keymap

Thanks, that seems to have done it.

As root:

install-keymap it.kmap.gz

:-)