I too use Ubuntu 12.04 and have stuggled with this issue. Using Jason Coombs' answer to his own question as a starting point, I was able to use /etc/default/keyboard to set my keyboard options (for me, ctrl:nocaps and compose:menu) and have that persist across reboots for consoles. However, the setting would be ignored by LightDM/Unity upon reboot. To clarify, I have not set any keyboard preferences from within Unity, so Unity should be defaulting to the system default keyboard settings, but it is not using the keyboard options for some reason.
I noticed that if I run the following command after logging in, Unity suddenly begins to recognize my system default keyboard options:
setxkbmap
I do not supply any parameters to setxkbmap, I merely invoke it with no options and it reads and applies the system default map.
To make this happen automatically when any user logs in (at least, any user with a Gnome or Unity desktop), I have made the following setxkbmap.desktop file that I placed in the /etc/xdg/autostart/ directory:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
TryExec=/usr/bin/setxkbmap
Exec=/usr/bin/setxkbmap
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=System Keyboard Fix
Name=System Keyboard Fix
Comment[en_US]=Apply system-wide keyboard settings to the session
Comment=Applies system-wide keyboard settings to session
This fix seems to make the keyboard options consistent system-wide, with the exception of the brief period that LightDM has control of my screen before I log in.
The Greek X11 Compose file offers multiple predefined options for typing characters as those you mention. To enable it, follow these steps:
- Open Language Support and select "XIM" as the input method.
Unless your selected display language is Greek, open the ~/.profile config file for editing and add this line:
export XCOMPOSEFILE=/usr/share/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose
Log out and log in again.
Then, to type e.g. ἄ, one option is: AltGr+>+'+α
You can find out other options by studying the /usr/share/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose file.
Edit:
These are the steps with Right Ctrl as the compose key:
- Press Right Ctrl
- Type > (by holding down Shift when pressing the key)
- Type ' (by holding down AltGr when pressing the key)
- Press α
Nothing should happen on the screen until you press the α key, and then the ἄ character should show up.
Best Answer
You can get access to the SIL repository following these instructions, then get the latest versions of kmfl-ibus and the IPA Keyboard package from the Ubuntu Software Center (searching for "kmfl" it should be one of the top results). Don't forget to log out and in.
For future reference, this page shows IPA keyboards for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
From the keyboard logo in your upper toolbar, which is hopefully there now, choose preferences, input method, select an input method, other, and IPA Unicode KMN, then click Add. You can choose how you switch from and to IPA from the "general" tab.
Good luck! Good luck!