Two keyboards

G

Graaf_van_Vlaanderen

I was just wondering, is it possible to set up two keyboards at the same time. Mostly I'm using the standard keyboard, but occasionally for writing French (or sometimes certain characters in Dutch), it is desirable for me to use the standard Belgian keyboard.

In a nutshell, one keyboard attached to the PS/2 and the other connected as a USB keyboard.
 
At home, I have two USB keyboards attached to the same server. Both work, at the same time. Identical keyboards though, and I have no special settings for either (it's just a server console).
 
Similarly, I have an USB and a PS/2 connected to my machine. If I'm not mistaken it's kbdmux(4) that takes care of it.

Not sure if you can load different keyboard mappings for each keyboard though.
 
Keyboard mappings are store in the console driver or X. Thus, you can only have 1 keyboard mapping loaded at a time. kbdmux allows input from multiple keyboards, but presents only a single logical keyboard to the system. (Although it would be cool if the mappings could be stored in the keyboard.)

However, you could switch mappings in the console/X, and then use the other keyboard, without having to worry about remembering which keys do what.
 
Perhaps I can use another account, where the other keymap is defined. Then login to this account and start the application from terminal. The problem might be that X will not take over that setting and just continue to use the setting as defined in the first account.
 
If this is only for X (including xterm's), most user environments for X (Xfce, KDE, Gnome, etc.) have tools to change the keyboard language on the fly. For example, in Xfce, you would use the "Keyboard layouts" plugin for the panel. Works for me.
 
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