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/keymap/defkeymap.map.gz symlink by running the following commands: cd /usr/share/kbd/keymaps && ln -s <path/to/keymap> 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 defkeymap.map.gz