Ubuntu – Change Ubuntu Onboard Keyboard Layout from Terminal

Ok, yet another try, this one will do the trick I hope... ;)

Credits are due to reverendj1, who described a way of assigning a Custom key to toggle keyboard layout, using setxkbmap, which featured in the workaround alluded to in Edit 2 of my previous answer...

Here is the slightly more involved way, but will give you more flexibility for the key combination. First, copy and paste this script I wrote and name it something like kb_toggle.sh. Make sure to edit LANG1 and LANG2 to be the keyboard layout codes you need.

#!/bin/bash

LANG1="us"
LANG2="de"
CURRENT_LANG=$(setxkbmap -query | tail -n 1 | cut -f6 -d ' ')
if [ "$CURRENT_LANG" = $LANG1 ]; then
    setxkbmap $LANG2
else
    setxkbmap $LANG1
fi

make the file by right-clicking on it -> "Properties" -> "Permissions" tab, then select "Allow executing file as program.

Now, open "System Settings" -> "Keyboard" -> "Shortcuts" tab and select "Custom Shortcuts". Click the + button on the bottom and name the shortcut "Keyboard Toggle" or whatever you want, really. Then give the full path to the script you made earlier in the command box. Hit Apply. Click where it says "Disabled" then you can set the shortcut to whatever you want by clicking your key combination!

I think you'd need to change "de" to "ir".

Again, good luck!

Edit

You may even get away with a one-liner, if you prefer:

setxkbmap us,ir -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle"

Now you can switch by pressing alt+shift

See also http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Change_keyboard_layouts and http://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.7/doc/man/man1/setxkbmap.1.xhtml

Edit 2

Depending on how you decide to achieve your goal, you may want to include lv3:ralt_alt in your command, resulting in

setxkbmap us,ir -option "lv3:ralt_alt,grp:alt_shift_toggle"

See man xkeyboard-config | grep lv3 for details:

lv3:ralt_alt

Right Alt key never chooses 3rd level

   xkeyboard-config  provides  the  description files for the X Keyboard Extension (XKB). The configuration options below are
   usually applied with setxkbmap(1).

Try unchecking "Use system defaults" and make sure that in the keyboard layout list the Spanish keyboard is the first. If you have no Spanish keyboard there add it an move it to the top of the list. It worked for me, hope it helps