kbd_mode(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

KBD_MODE(1)              General Commands Manual              KBD_MODE(1)

NAME         top

       kbd_mode - report or set the keyboard mode

SYNOPSIS         top

       kbd_mode [ -a | -u | -k | -s | -d ] [ -f ] [ -C CONSOLE ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       Without argument, kbd_mode prints the current keyboard mode (RAW,
       MEDIUMRAW or XLATE). Using the options it is possible to switch
       the keyboard mode of the current console or the specified console.

OPTIONS         top

       -a, --ascii
              set ASCII mode (XLATE).

       -k, --keycode
              set keycode mode (MEDIUMRAW).

       -s, --scancode
              set scancode mode (RAW).

       -u, --unicode
              set UTF-8 mode (UNICODE).

       -d, --disable
              set Disable mode (OFF).

       -f, --force
              switch the mode even if it makes the keyboard unusable.

       -C, --console=DEV
              the console device to be used.

       Of course the "-a" is only traditional, and the code used can be
       any 8-bit character set.  With "-u" a 16-bit character set is
       expected, and these chars are transmitted to the kernel as 1, 2,
       or 3 bytes (following the UTF-8 coding).  In these latter two
       modes the key mapping defined by loadkeys(1) is used.

       The Didable mode for the virtual console keyboard OFF to
       compliment RAW in which all key events are ignored. The mode
       prevents vt input buffers from overflowing when a program opens
       but doesn't read from a tty, like Xorg using only evdev for input.

       kbd_mode operates on the console specified by the "-C" option; if
       there is none, the console associated with stdin is used.

       Warning: changing the keyboard mode, other than between ASCII and
       Unicode, will probably make your keyboard unusable. Set the "-f"
       option to force such changes.  This command is only meant for use
       (say via remote login) when some program left your keyboard in the
       wrong state.  Note that in some obsolete versions of this program
       the "-u" option was a synonym for "-s" and older versions of this
       program may not recognize the "-f" option.

AUTHORS         top

       Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>

SEE ALSO         top

       loadkeys(1)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the kbd (Linux keyboard tools) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.kbd-project.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, send it to kbd@lists.altlinux.org.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/legionus/kbd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-07-01.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

kbd                             6 Apr 1994                    KBD_MODE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: kbdinfo(1)loadkeys(1)unicode_start(1)unicode_stop(1)ioctl_console(2)