MAN page from RedHat Other kbd-0.91-10.i386.rpm

LOADKEYS

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 6 Feb 1994
Index

NAME

loadkeys - load keyboard translation tables

SYNOPSIS

loadkeys[-c --clearcompose] [-d --default] [-h --help] [-m --mktable] [-s --clearstrings] [-v --verbose] [filename...]

DESCRIPTION

loadkeysreads the file or files specified byfilename....If this file does not contain any compose key definitions,the kernel accent table is left unchanged, unless the-c(or--clearcompose) option is given.The option-s(or--clearstrings) clears the kernel string table. If this option is not given,loadkeyswill only add or replace strings, not remove them.If the-d(or--default) option is given,loadkeysloads a default keymap, probably the file defkeymap.map either in/usr/lib/kbd/keytables or in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char.If the -m(or--mktable) option is given it prints to the standard output a file that maybe used as /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/defkeymap.c, specifying thedefault key bindings for a kernel.Otherwise, it modifies the keyboard drivers's translation tables.The files are in the format specified bykeytables(5).When specifying the file names, standard input can be denoted by dash(-). The files are read in consecutively one by one to in effectcatenate all the input files together. If no file is specified, thedata is read from the standard input. Thus, the following command linesare equivalent:

cat foo.map bar.map | loadkeys

cat foo.map bar.map | loadkeys -

cat foo.map | loadkeys - bar.map

cat bar.map | loadkeys foo.map -

loadkeys foo.map bar.map

Note that anyone having read access to/dev/consolecan runloadkeysand thus change the keyboard layout, possibly making it unusable. Notethat the keyboard translation table is common for all the virtualconsoles, so any changes to the keyboard bindings affect all the virtualconsoles simultaneously.

Note that because the changes affect all the virtual consoles, they alsooutlive your session. This means that even at the login prompt the keybindings may not be what the user expects.

OPTIONS

-h --help: loadkeysprints its version number and a short usage message to the programsstandard error output and exits.

FILES

/usr/lib/kbd/keytables/: default directory for keytable files

/usr/src/linux/drivers/char/defkeymap.mapdefault keymap

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