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Setting Up an International Keyboard with Xmodmap

By Juraj Sipos

1. Introduction

This is a revision of my experimental howto published in Linux Gazette, which you may find here. I revised it because there is not the KIKBD utility in KDE 2.0 anymore and XFree86 4.x handles standard ISO8859-2 keycode definitions better than older versions. This information is fully concerned with the Xmodmap solution only, not the XKB one.
[Note: This article covers XFree86 version 4.x, which may not be in your distribution yet. -Ed.]

1.2 Quick start

Make your own .Xmodmap file according to information in this file.

Write the following to your .bash_profile in home directory: 

export LANG=language 
export LC_ALL=language
where "language" is the language you want to use. The languages can be found in the file locale.alias in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale. Run the "exit" command on the console and log in again for bash to read the statement from ~/.bash_profile.

Install fonts (best are ISO8859-2 Type1 fonts for Czech or Slovak), put them in path to your XF86Config. Start X Server.

Please note that under certain circumstances the KDE 2.0 text editor doesn't display ISO8859-2 fonts even if you have them in path. The "Latin2" statement in this editor's menu seems not to work. Install another simple text editor where you can CHOOSE fonts (the old kedit from older KDE will do). Open a dialog window from menu, select font and choose ISO8859-2 encoding.

Run the command "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap" from an X terminal window to force the system to read the Xmodmap file.

Switch the keyboard and enjoy.

The other, XKB solution, which is not covered in this file but mentioned since it pertains to internationalization too, is another way of configuring international keyboard, and both the XKB and XMODMAP solutions are independent of one another. You may alternatively edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config file as explained in the Danish-HOWTO, or issue this command in an X terminal window for the Slovak keyboard: 

setxkbmap -model pc102 -symbols 'czsk(us_sk_qwertz)' setxkbmap cs -option grp:shift_toggle
The "grp:shift_toggle" gives you an option to switch between keyboards You may also try to write 
Option "XkbOptions"         "grp:ctrl_shift_toggle"
to your XF86Config file, which will change keyboards by pressing Ctrl and Shift at the same time.

To see a variety of languages, look in the file symbols.dir in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb directory. Note that some symbols are only in sources and not in binaries.

As you see, this looks quite complicated too and it gets even more difficult when you realize that many national keymaps are not included in the standard XFree86 binary distribution, although they are included in its sources. The kikbd utility for handling international keyboard layouts was removed from KDE 2.0 and documentation is quite insufficient. A simple way would be to start KDE, change the international keyboard settings and immediately write in the language you chose (this will work for German and other languages, but in Eastern European keyboards some letters will not function).

Moreover, the KDE 2.0 command "kcmshell Personalization/kcmlayout" will not show you a Croatian or Macedonian keyboard. And although it shows a Czechoslovakian keyboard, Czechoslovakia does not exist as a country anymore and users may be confused with how to define the Czech or Slovak language separately.

Some X Windows managers override .Xmodmap setting. If .Xmodmap doesn't work, a good way is to force the system to read it from your root (home) directory. You will do this by issuing the following command from an X terminal window:

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

After I installed the Slovak keyboard in KDE with Xmodmap file that used the standard definitions for ISO8859-2 letters (lcaron, scaron, etc.), I couldn't write in Slovak or Czech, but this is already explained in my howto published in Linux Gazette. That experimental solution is not necessary for the newer versions of XFree86.
 
 

2. Setting up international keyboard in X Windows with Xmodmap

It basically works like this:

1. Standard solution uses the standard names for letters (scaron for s with a caron above it, uacute for ú - a slash above it).

2. Experimental solution, where some keycode names from ISO8859-1 character set table will give you scaron, for example.

Put the following in you Bash_profile: 

export LC_ALL=language 
export LANG=language
OR 
export LC_CTYPE=SK_SK 
export LC_ALL=SK_SK 
OR for csh shell 
setenv LC_ALL=language 
setenv LANG=language
and have the standard Xmodmap file in your home directory. If you ask me where you may obtain such "standard" Xmodmap files, go to GNOME ../share directory. The file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias contains the aliases for languages, so look there in order to find out what is ca_ES or br_FR, or to find out the exact syntax for your language (you cannot write "croatia" but you must write "croatian", not "Croatian"; this is very important, as Unix is case sensitive).

Now you must install the pertinent language fonts and put its path statement in XF86Config file. If you want to internationalize your keyboard, use the standard Xmodmap definitions first and use right alt to switch between keyboards (if you use GNOME Xmodmap files). If it does not work, do the following:

If you use KDE or GNOME and .Xmodmap does not work, force the system to read it as mentioned above by issuing the command "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap". Alternatively, you can have 60 .Xmodmap files like .Xmo1, .Xmo2, .Xmo3, .Xmo4, etc., and you may force the system to read them (xmodmap  /.Xmo1). The dot means it is a hidden file and it is not necessary. You may also have xmo1, xmo2, or xmo3 Xmodmap files.

You may write in a national keyboard only with applications that have access to your ISO8859-2 fonts (or other fonts), but this may not work with StarOffice or with other applications that have their own built-in fonts. StarOffice has its own fonts directory - for afm fonts in StarOffice/share/xp3/fontmetrics/afm, and for ps fonts in StarOffice/share/xp3/pssoftfonts, so you must add the ISO8859-2 fonts to these directories (to tell StarOffice to use these fonts too) and edit fonts.dir file and add the symlinked fonts there. Here is a script that will do it for you. Name it "so52", make it executable (chmod +x so52), copy it to the StarOffice/share/xp3 directory and execute it there.

StarOffice 5.2 fully recognizes Word97 documents even written in other languages, but for the older versions or other editors, you may use a converter from iso8859-2 to win1250 encoding.

StarOffice 5.2 can be thus used by professional translators who may translate in any languages and give outputs in MS Word97 or rtf format.

Character sets

The purpose of the following info is to help you build any .Xmodmap keyboard layout with iso8859-2 or other fonts. The ISO-8859-2 Character Table is included here for you to know which names are used. Much of this information is useful to build a keyboard with ISO-8859-1 characters only, or a combination of Eastern European characters and Western characters. If you're going to use other languages than the Central European or Western European ones, find a pertinent table for your ISO*** character set on Internet. There is gdkkeysyms.h file in (RedHat) /usr/include/gdk/gdkkeysyms.h which contains all the special names we're using here (it also contains names of Greek characters).

Xmodmap with standard ISO8859-2 definitions

The example of a standard .Xmodmap file from keycode 0x31 to 0x33. This file will make X Server correctly display lcaron, scaron, etc., if you use a newer version of XFree86 and have a LC_LANG=language and LC_ALL=language statements in your bash_profile. Just copy the following text from keycode 0x31 to 0x33 to my Xmodmap file published some time ago in Linux Gazette (delete the experimental definitions from keycode 0x31 to 0x33). [Text version of this listing.] 
keycode 0x31 = grave asciitilde semicolon dead_diaeresis
keycode 0x0A = 1 exclam plus 1 
keycode 0x0B = 2 at lcaron 2 
keycode 0x0C = 3 numbersign scaron 3 
keycode 0x0D = 4 dollar ccaron 4 
keycode 0x0E = 5 percent tcaron 5 
keycode 0x0F = 6 asciicircum scaron 6 
keycode 0x10 = 7 ampersand yacute 7 
keycode 0x11 = 8 asterisk aacute 8 
keycode 0x12 = 9 parenleft iacute 9 
keycode 0x13 = 0 parenright eacute 0 
keycode 0x14 = minus underscore equal percent 
keycode 0x15 = equal plus dead_acute dead_caron 
keycode 0x33 = backslash bar ograve parenright
 

This is the table you can use for building your Central European keyboard with standard Xmodmap solution.


A caron is a reverse ^ above letter.

Acute is a small dash like / above the letter (ú, which is uacute).

Diaeresis is two dots .. above the letter.

Dot is a dot above the letter (zdot).

The following table will explain it even better:


 
 

If you want to build an ISO8859-1 Xmodmap file for a German or Danish keyboard, you must have another map to know how these symbols are named unless you are familirar with them.

The following Xmodmap entities on the right must be included in your Xmodmap file to have the East European keyboard layout.
 
 
 
Central European characters
Character Name Xmodmap and SGML entities
NON-BREAKING SPACE nbsp
CURRENCY SIGN curren
BROKEN BAR brvbar
SECTION SIGN sect
DIAERESIS uml
COPYRIGHT SIGN copy
LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK laquo
NOT SIGN not
SOFT HYPHEN shy
REGISTERED SIGN reg
DEGREE SIGN deg
PLUS-MINUS SIGN plusmn
ACUTE ACCENT acute
MICRO SIGN micro
PILCROW SIGN para
MIDDLE DOT middot
CEDILLA cedil
RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK raquo
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE Aacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX Acirc
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS Auml
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA Ccedil
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE Eacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS Euml
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE Iacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX Icirc
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE Oacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX Ocirc
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS Ouml
MULTIPLICATION SIGN times
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE Uacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS Uuml
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE Yacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S szlig
LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE aacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX acirc
LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS auml
LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA ccedil
LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE eacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS euml
LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE iacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX icirc
LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE oacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX ocirc
LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS ouml
DIVISION SIGN divide
LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE uacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS uuml
LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE yacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE Abreve
LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH BREVE abreve
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH OGONEK Aogon
LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH OGONEK aogon
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH ACUTE Cacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH ACUTE cacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CARON Ccaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CARON ccaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH CARON Dcaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH CARON dcaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH STROKE Dstrok
LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH STROKE dstrok
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH OGONEK Eogon
LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH OGONEK eogon
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CARON Ecaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CARON ecaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH ACUTE Lacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH ACUTE lacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH CARON Lcaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH CARON lcaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH STROKE Lstrok
LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH STROKE lstrok
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH ACUTE Nacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH ACUTE nacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH CARON Ncaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH CARON ncaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE Odblac
LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE odblac
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH ACUTE Racute
LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH ACUTE racute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH CARON Rcaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH CARON rcaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH ACUTE Sacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH ACUTE sacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA Scedil
LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA scedil
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CARON Scaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CARON scaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA Tcedil
LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA tcedil
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH CARON Tcaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CARON tcaron
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH RING ABOVE Uring
LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH RING ABOVE uring
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DOUBLE ACUTE Udblac
LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DOUBLE ACUTE udblac
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH ACUTE Zacute
LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH ACUTE zacute
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH DOT ABOVE Zdot
LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH DOT ABOVE zdot
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH CARON Zcaron
LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH CARON zcaron
CARON caron
BREVE breve
DOT ABOVE dot
OGONEK ogon
DOUBLE ACUTE ACCENT dblac

 

3. How this Xmodmap solution works on various systems

In GNOME this is not important, but to correclty use ISO8859-2 fonts with KDE 2.x native applications you should  change the i18n file (/etc/sysconfig/i18n) as follows:

RedHat:
LANG="sk_SK"

where "sk_SK" is your langauge.

Mandrake:
 SYSFONT=lat0-sun16
 LC_MONETARY=en_US
 LC_CTYPE=cs_CZ
 LC_NUMERIC=en_US
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US
 LANGUAGE=cs_CZ:cs
 LC_TIME=en_US
 RPM_INSTALL_LANG=en
 LC_COLLATE=en_US
 SYSFONTACM=iso15
 LANG=sk

Or in FreeBSD 4.2 you edit /etc/profile in the following way:
   LANG=cs_CZ.ISO_8859-2; export LANG                                            # to write in Czech
   LC_MESSAGES=en_US.ISO_8859-1; export LC_MESSAGES           # to have English messages

In the case of Mandrake or FreeBSD we will be using the map "cs" from the
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/ directory. You can always use the xmodmap
solution with this, but an alternative way is to edit your map file
accordingly where you replace definitions with your own. KDE 2.x also
requires to choose from menu Personalization > Country and Language >
iso8859-2 charset (or other charset). Only then it correctly displays
ISO8859-2 fonts in its native applications. Here GNOME appears more user-friendly.

The following pertains to situation where the i18n file was not changed.

3.1 SuSe 7.0 with XFree86 3.3.6 and KDE 2.0

You may use the Xmodmap file with standard ISO8859-2 keycode definitions (not "threequarters" but "scaron", etc.). Unfortunately, although you may immediately start writing with ISO8859-2 keycodes, the dead keys are not working properly and export LANG=language does not work here in order to make these dead keys work.

After copying the Compose file from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-2/ to the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/, you may start elegantly working with dead keys. This was also tested on StarOffice 5.2. The FontPath must be in /etc/XF86Config, not in /etc/X11/Xf86Config. If you put the FontPath for ISO8859-2 fonts to the /etc/X11/Xf86Config file, StarOffice may not see these fonts properly. While working with StarOffice, you must NOT use the fonts from the StarOffice itself, but the ones from ../ISO8859-2 directory (they will automatically appear in the font menu after executing the above script).

The following is the FontPath section for ISO8859-2 fonts from my SuSE 7.0 /etc/XF86Config file:

FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ISO8859-2/Type1"

FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ISO8859-2/Type1/afm"

FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ISO8859-2/Type1/pfm"

3.2 SuSE 7.0 with XFree86 version 3.3.6 and KDE 1.x

Same as with KDE 2.0.

3.3 Mandrake Linux 7.2 with XFree86 version 4.x

Here only the LANG=language and LC_ALL=langauge statements in your bash_profile are sufficient (but not for KDE 2.x native applications). Apply the standard .Xmodmap keycodes (scaron, lcaron, not "threequarters" or "mu", etc.) and issue the command: "xmodmap  /.Xmodmap" and you may work by switching the keyboards by the Scroll Lock (if you use my Xmodmap file; if you use other Xmodmap file, try right Alt or whatever that is defined in that Xmodmap file).

The FontPath statement in /etc/X11/XF86Config and /etc/X11/XF86Config does not have to be changed:

FontPath "unix/:1"

The XFree86 reads your new ISO8859-2 fonts automatically in /usr/share/fonts directory (same as in RedHat). Surprisingly, you do not have to copy the ../ISO8859-2/Compose file to ../ISO8859-1 directory and dead keys work nice. To use ISO8859-2 fonts with KDE 2.0 native applications, see the above i18n file for Mandrake 7.2.

3.4 RedHat 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 (XFree86 older version)

Here the "experimental" .Xmodmap solution works ("mu" instead of "lcaron", etc.) and you must copy the Compose file from ../IS08859-2 to ISO8859-1 directory in order for dead keys to work. There is only one XF86Config file in /etc/X11 and its FontPath is the same as in SuSE 7.0 above.

3.5 FreeBSD 3.1 and 3.2

Same as in RedHat 6.0, 6.1, 6.2

3.6 FreeBSD 4.x

Same as FreeBSD 3.1 and 3.2. But FreeBSD 4.x handles better the LANG=language statemets with XKB. Here this depends also on XFree86. Because the FreeBSD guys are too conservative about the newer software, they ship FreeBSD with older versions of XFree86. In FreeBSD 4.1 the experimental .Xmodmap solution works and you have to copy the ../ISO8859-2/Compose file to ../ISO8859-1 directory to make the dead keys work. If you download the newer XFree86 version, apply the "standard" Xmodmap soilution. For FreeBSD 4.2, see the above /etc/profile file and modify it appropriately for you needs.

4. Some national Xmodmap files