Thinkpads Forum

I bought a refurbished x200s previously owned by Vodafone Germany, whose the keyboard layout seems to be a mix between English US and German ("Ctrl" and "Del" are in German, but "ö" and "ß" are missing though).

My goal is to be able to type in French (accents and specific characters like "à" or "ç") in Linux Mint Cinnamon. To achieve it, the layout must be set precisely: language (i.e. German or English US) + type/option (Dvorak, dead key/acute, etc).

I've been pretty unsuccessful at recognizing the keyboard because it doesn't look like a regular German or English US one.

https://i37.servimg.com/u/f37/11/20/06/58/clavie10.jpg

You may have a special KB that was made only for Vodafone.
The "regular" keys are definitely from a UK English KB (hence the large blue Enter key).
The "surround" keys could be German or Austrian, but all the umlaut-keys are missing.
For typing in French, that KB is useless, you'll never get the accents properly sorted.
Buy a French keyboard (Chicony: P/N 42T3742 or NMB: P/N 42T3676). NMB is better quality.

Why don't you remove the Keyboard?
It's P/N or FRU number will be on the KB-bottom.
See also HMM pages 94-96: http://www.thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hm ... 632_10.pdf

If you like strange KB-layouts, look here: http://tzanonymous.blogspot.com/2016/06 ... youts.html

The surround keys are German. But as RBS has indicated, the umlaut keys are missing.

Pick a keyboard layout and then remap keys as needed.

Ideas on how to remap keys is here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=121902

In otherwords, your physical keyboard is ok. You can solve the problem easily with software.

edit: set the Keyboard Model to 'Generic 105-key (Intl) PC and set the Keyboard Layout to French.

Indeed, this keyboard might be a Franken keyboard or a made to order one specifically for Vodafone.

However, in Linux Mint Cinnamon, I ended up setting the "English International Alt gr dead keys" layout and managed to find some combinations on the internet and guessed the rest by trying ; I lost the brackets on the way...

Take that KB out and give us the P/N or FRU please.

I'd be interested in knowing that too.

Ok, so on another forum, one chap might have found the solution: this is clearly a German keyboard whose some keys/stickers have been replaced in order to turn it into a UK keyboard. The line containing the numbers is somehow wrong. These sellers refurbishing used laptop are really not very serious (at least it wasn't very expensive)...

So now I know that I have to set the keyboard to UK layout, I'll maybe change the keyboard when I'll have the budget.

http://www.meg4tec.co.uk/1ebaypic/keyboards/t410.jpg (330KB)

Admin edit: Changed inline image to link. Please keep images <50KB.

So now I know that I have to set the keyboard to UK layout.

Nonsense. If you want to speak French, do you go to London?
If you want to write in French, use a French layout.

This is a picture of a French keyboard for an x200s:
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB18gGdNXXX ... yboard.jpg

To type on your keyboard as if it were this French keyboard, set the layout to 'French' and keyboard model to "Generic 105-key (Intl) PC". Note: just "French"; not "French (alternative)" and not "French (Dvorak)", etc. Just "French".

Here's a quick test from Debian, which Mint is built upon:
ç à ê ë £ $ ¤ d * µ é ~ ù % à 0 @ ) ° ] 5 ( [

With a 'French' keyboard, the command line program 'xev' shows [ ] { } as:
keycode 14 (keysym 0x5b, bracketleft)
keycode 20 (keysym 0x5d, bracketright)
keycode 13 (keysym 0x7b, braceleft)
keycode 21 (keysym 0x7d, braceright)

cant see the point of not buying a fr kb should be easy to find.