Few things are more annoying than using Linux while a wrong keymap for your keyboard is loaded. If you have a standard US keyboard, however, you can skip this section, as the US keymap is the default as long as you don't change it. To change the default keymap, create the /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz symlink by running the following command: ln -s path/to/keymap /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz Of course, replace path/to/keymap with the path and name of your keyboard's map file. For example, if you have a Dutch keyboard, you would use i386/qwerty/nl.map.gz. Another way to set your keyboard's layout is to compile the keymap into the kernel. This ensures that your keyboard will always work as expected, even when you boot into maintenance mode (by passing `init=/bin/sh' to the kernel), as then the bootscript that normally sets up your keymap isn't run. Run the following command to patch the current default keymap into the kernel source. You will have to repeat this command whenever you unpack a new kernel: loadkeys -m /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/defkeymap.map.gz > \     /usr/src/linux-&kernel-version;/drivers/char/defkeymap.c