Debian - Change keyboard layout to US International

By xngo on February 21, 2019

The following instructions show how to change keyboard layout to US International so that you can type accent characters.

  1. Run dpkg-reconfigure console-data.
  2. Select qwerty->US american->Standard->US International (ISO 8859-1).
  3. Run the following to activate the Compose Key: setxkbmap us -variant alt-intl.
  4. Now, on the console, press ' and e, you will get é.
  5. The setxkbmap command only temporarily activates the Compose key. To make it permanent, add the following right below Option "XkbLayout" "us" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4: Option "XkbVariant" "alt-intl"

Note: To get c cedilla, hold right-Alt + Comma and then press c.

Debian

About the author

Xuan Ngo is the founder of OpenWritings.net. He currently lives in Montreal, Canada. He loves to write about programming and open source subjects.