

Note: You must specify as many variants as the number of specified layouts. See the #Frequently used XKB options section for examples. Used for specifying layout switching, notification LED, compose mode etc.

But for instance laptops usually have some extra keys, and sometimes you can make them work by simply setting a proper model.

This has an influence only for some extra keys your keyboard might have. Keyboard layout in Xorg can be set in multiple ways. $ xkblayout-state print "%s" de Setting keyboard layout There are some "unofficial" utilities which allow to print specific information about the currently used keyboard layout. Symbols: pc+us+inet(evdev)+terminate(ctrl_alt_bksp) Trying to build keymap using the following components: $ setxkbmap -print -verbose 10 Setting verbose level to 10 You can use the following command to see the actual XKB settings: Note: XKB options can be overridden by the tools provided by some desktop environments such as GNOME and KDE.
