During the installation of your Ubuntu-VPS, you are given the option to set a keyboard language. You may however want to change it later, for example for a specific user. In this article, we show you how this works.
- These steps only change the language in the VPS console. Do you use Putty or a terminal (Mac / Linux), for example? Then, the language of your OS is used.
- Use sudo or a root user when using the commands in this article
Step 1
Connect to your VPS using SSH or the VPS console as root user and then use the command:
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
Step 2
You will first see the screen below. Here, you can change the keyboard model but adjusting it can lead to problems. Do not change anything here and press 'Enter' to continue to the actual language choices.

Step 3
You will now see an overview of the different options within your current language selection. Scroll down to 'other' and press 'Enter' to see the general language overview.

Step 4
You will now get an overview with the specific options for the relevant language. The regular options (e.g., English (US), French, etc.) are normally the right choice here.

After making your choice, you still have the option to set an 'Alt Gr' and / or a 'Compose' key. You do not normally need these for the use of a VPS.
The change is implemented immediately and remains intact for Ubuntu after a reboot.
This concludes this tutorial on how to change your keyboard language in Ubuntu 18.04.
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