Nothing is more annoying than using Linux with a wrong keymap loaded for your keyboard. If you have a default US keyboard, you can skip this section. The US keymap file is the default if you don't change it. To set the default keymap file, create the /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz symlink by running the following commands: ln -s <path/to/keymap> /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz Replace <path/to/keymap> with the your keyboard's map file. For example, if you have a Dutch keyboard, you would run: ln -s i386/qwerty/nl.map.gz /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz A second option to configure your keyboard's layout is to compile the keymap directly into the kernel. This will make sure that your keyboard always works as expected, even when you have booted into maintenance mode (by passing `init=/bin/sh' to the kernel) in which case the bootscript that normally sets up your keymap isn't run. If you didn't create the defkeymap.map.gz file and going with the default US keymap, then again you don't have to do anything. The kernel compiles a suitable keymap by default that'll work just fine for you, so skip the next command. Run the following commands to accomplish that: loadkeys -m /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz > \     /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/defkeymap.c