kbd(4) - Linux man page

Name

kbd - Keyboard input driver

Synopsis

Section InputDevice  Identifier idevname  Driver kbd  ...
EndSection

Description

kbd is an Xorg input driver for keyboards. The driver supports the standard OS-provided keyboard interface, but these are currently only available to this driver module for Linux, BSD, and Solaris. This driver is the replacement for the built-in keyboard driver formerly included in Xorg.

The kbd driver functions as a keyboard input device.

Configuration Details

Depending on the X server version in use, input device options may be set in either a xorg.conf file, an xorg.conf.d snippet, or in the configuration files read by the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) daemon, hald(1).

Please refer to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration details and for options that can be used with all input drivers. This section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.

The following driver Options are supported:

Option Device string: Specify the keyboard device. Default: the OS's default console keyboard input source. Property: "Device Node" (read-only).
Option Protocol string: Specify the keyboard protocol. Valid protocol types include:

Standard, Xqueue.

Not all protocols are supported on all platforms. Default: "Standard".

Option XLeds ledlist: makes the keyboard LEDs specified in ledlist available for client use instead of their traditional function (Scroll Lock, Caps Lock and Num Lock). The numbers in the list are in the range 1 to 3. Default: empty list.
Option XkbRules rules: specifies which XKB rules file to use for interpreting the XkbModel, XkbLayout, XkbVariant, and XkbOptions settings. Default: "base" for most platforms. If you use the "base" value then you can find listing of all valid values for these four options in the /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst file.
Option XkbModel modelname: specifies the XKB keyboard model name. Default: "pc105" for most platforms.
Option XkbLayout layoutname: specifies the XKB keyboard layout name. This is usually the country or language type of the keyboard. Default: "us" for most platforms.
Option XkbVariant variants: specifies the XKB keyboard variant components. These can be used to enhance the keyboard layout details. Default: not set.
Option XkbOptions options: specifies the XKB keyboard option components. These can be used to enhance the keyboard behaviour. Default: not set.

For a list of available XKB options, see xkeyboard-config(7).

Example

The following xorg.conf fragment ensures that user will be able to switch between us and sk layouts by pressing the "menu" key. The scroll lock LED shows which layout is currently active.

The XkbVariant option defines which variants of the two layouts should be used. In case of the us layout its default variant is used. In case of the sk layout its qwerty variant is used.

Section InputDevice
Identifier   "Generic Keyboard"
Driver       "kbd"
Option       "CoreKeyboard"
Option       "XkbRules"      "base"
Option       "XkbModel"      "pc105"
Option       "XkbLayout"     "us,sk"
Option       "XkbVariant"    ",qwerty"
Option       "XkbOptions"    "grp:menu_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
EndSection

Referenced By

keyboard(4)