Solved vt: Use Same Keyboard for English or Ukrainian

[marcelbonnet]

Guys, I need to type some files in Ukrainian when connected to tty (vt). Is there anyway to ask the system to "now type Ukrainian alphabet", "now return to default keyboard map" using the same physical keyboard?

The physical keyboard is QWERTY.

Thanks in advance.

 

[aragats]

You can set your keymap by executing:

kbdcontrol -l ua.kbd

or, to make it permanent, add to /etc/rc.conf:

keymap="ua.kbd"

Then in console by pressing CapsLock you can toggle between English and Ukranian.

The CapsLock switch is not universal, it is provided by certain keymap files, e.g. ua.kbd or ru.kbd (the stock keymaps are in /usr/share/vt/keymaps/). Some keymaps use different switches, e.g. Ctrl-Shift. I could not find meaningful information how to make your own layout switch though, maybe somebody here can shed more light on this.

Also, make sure your $LANG variable is set to ∗_∗.UTF-8, for example en_US.UTF-8.