12.1. Keyboards and XKB

Keyboard configuration is a more complicated issue than it might at first appear. There are many different keyboards sold, each with a different number or arrangement of keys. Each of these keyboard models may be sold in different markets, with different key caps installed, and users may want their keyboard to operate in specific ways.

Together, this means that there are thousands of possible keyboard configurations. The XKB extension tries to simplify this by combining a small number of keyboard selection parameters to compose a particular configuration. The final configuration is called a keyboard map.