1 Preliminary Note
If you're using a system with a desktop environment like Gnome or KDE you should use its tools to configure the default language and the keyboard layout. In the following steps I'll show you how to change the default language and the keyboard layout within the console on various distributions.
2 Fedora 8 Server / CentOS 5.x 2.1 Default Language
system-config-language
2.2 Keyboard Layout
system-config-keyboard
3 Debian Etch Server 3.1 Default Language
dpkg-reconfigure locales
3.2 Keyboard Layout
dpkg-reconfigure console-data
4 Ubuntu 7.10 Server 4.1 Default Language
sudo set-language-env -E
4.2 Keyboard Layout
sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup
5 Mandriva 2008 Server 5.1 Default Language
localedrake
5.2 Keyboard Layout
keyboarddrake
6 Suse 10.X Server 6.1 Default Language
yast2
Select "System" on the left side and then "Language" on the right side. Change the language and save the settings with "Accept"
6.2 Keyboard Layout
yast2
Select "Hardware" on the left side and then "Keyboard Layout" on the right side. Change the keyboard layout and save the settings with "Accept".
Here is instructions for localization of Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/guide-localization.xml
General Linux: http://howto.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_change_the_keyboard_layout_in_text_mode_on_a_linux-based_operating_system
But this howto can be coocked down to:
To change temporary (until reboot) loadkeys sv-latin To change temporarily to swedish keyboard layout.
And to verify that the keyboard layout is correct use the command: showkey
Permanent setting (RHEL, CentOS and Fedora): Edit /etc/sysconfig/keyboard and replace KEYTABLE="us" by KEYTABLE="sv-latin1" save and reboot.
To find whitch keyboard layout maps that is available is in the map /lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/... or /usr/share/keymaps/i386/..., depending on which distro is used.