The post is about configuring a Unicode keyboard layout for the system console on Gentoo. However, the steps should be similar on other systems.
Enable Unicode in /etc/rc.conf:
unicode="yes"
Install a font for UTF-8 consoles:
# emerge -av media-fonts/terminus-font
Change /etc/conf.d/consolefont:
consolefont=LatArCyrHeb-16 # consolefont="ter-v16b" consoletranslation=""Make sure that
/etc/init.d/consolefont is enabled:
# rc-update add consolefont boot
Set default console keymap in /etc/conf.d/keymaps:
keymap="us"
Add
/etc/init.d/keymaps to the boot run level:
# rc-update add keymaps boot
Configure the shell to send switch-to-unicode escape sequence at each
login. For Bash add the following to your ~/.bash_profile:
if test -t 1 -a -t 2 ; then
echo -n -e '\033%G'
fi
To make the switch to Unicode global for all users the above-mentioned snippet should be added to
/etc/profile.
Reboot the system. Now Unicode should be available on all system console logins.
To load different keyboard layout use the loadkeys command
(which is shipped with sys-apps/kbd package):
# loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/{YOUR_ARCH}/{PATH_TO_KEYMAP}
For instance, to load Russian Qwerty layout for i386 (will work on amd64):
# loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/ru.map.gz
One might want to make a shortcut for this. Use
Ctrl-Shift shortcut for switching between the keymaps.
