Russianizing the ASUS Eee PC series

These instructions were taken from http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=12544:


You don't need to install anything. All the fonts are already installed in xandrox. You just need to add a couple of lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  1. open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+t)
  2. become root
    sudo -i
  3. backup your old config file in case you screw up
    cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.eee-orig
  4. open the file in an editor
    nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  5. Scroll down to section "InputDevice" with identifier "Keyboard"
  6. Change line
    Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    to
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
    (make sure there are no spaces between us and ru)
  7. Change line
    Option "XkbVariant" ""
    to
    Option "XkbVariant" ",winkeys"
  8. If you want to assign a button to switch between languages, you need to add one more line
    Option "XkbOptions" "grp:lwin_toggle"
  9. Save: Ctrl+O (in nano. May be Ctrl+S if you use kwrite - I don't know)
  10. Exit nano: Ctrl+X
  11. Restart X: Ctrl+Alt+Backspace

This makes the "HOME" button switch languages instead of showing desktop. I don't usually use this button, so it was a good choice for me. If you want to use a different button for that, you will need to do some research as to how your desired button is called in xorg

Also, the above will setup the layout similar to windows russian layout. If you need something different, use different XkbVariant (like "phonetic" or other)

If the lines you need to change are different from what I show here (I suppose they are if you installed Italian), then don't just copy my lines. Instead, add the ",ru" and ",winkeys" part to your existing lines. Again, make sure you don't insert spaces after comma.