How to have russian keyboard in X-Window the easy (and working) way.

Assumes that one wants to keep all messages in english and basicly
have english oriented system with ability to use and input russian
characters.

0. run 'locale -a | grep KOI8-R' to check if you already have
   ru_RU.KOI8-R locale. Skip to step 4 if you do.

1. localedef -c -i ru_RU -f KOI8-R ru_RU.KOI8-R

2. Add a line to /usr/share/locale/locale.alias

ru_RU.KOI8-R    ru_RU.koi8r

3. Run locale -a again and make sure there is a shiny new ru_RU.KOI8-R
   locale

4. Bring /etc/sysconfig/i18n to more or less the following:

LANG="en_US"
LC_CTYPE="ru_RU.KOI8-R"
LC_COLLATE="ru_RU.KOI8-R"
SUPPORTED="en_US:en"
SYSFONT="lat0-sun16"
SYSFONTACM="iso01"

5. Remove your ~/.Xmodmap or whatever you used for russification before
   (if anything).

6. InputDevice section in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 should lok somewhat
   like:

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier  "Keyboard0"
  Driver      "keyboard"

  Option      "AutoRepeat"    "250 30"
  Option      "Xleds"         "1 2 3"

  Option      "XkbRules"   "xfree86"
  Option      "XkbModel"   "microsoft"
  Option      "XkbLayout"  "ru"
  Option      "XkbOptions" "grp:caps_toggle"
EndSection

7. That's it for most applications. At least mozilla and gnome-terminal
   will work :)

8. Now if you want more, grab Ivan Pascal's xxkb package from
   http://www.tsu.ru/~pascal/other/xxkb/

   It has an additional benefit of reversing digits/symbols in russian
   mode to which I got used.

9. Config in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/XXkb should look
   somewhat like:

XXkb.group.base: 1
XXkb.group.alt: 3

XXkb.mainwindow.enable: no
XXkb.mainwindow.appicon: no
XXkb.mainwindow.geometry: 48x48
XXkb.mainwindow.xpm.1: en48.xpm
XXkb.mainwindow.xpm.2: su48.xpm
XXkb.mainwindow.xpm.3: ru48.xpm
XXkb.mainwindow.xpm.4:

XXkb.button.enable: yes
XXkb.button.geometry: 15x15-60+4
XXkb.button.gravity: NorthEast
XXkb.button.xpm.1: en15.xpm
XXkb.button.xpm.2: su15.xpm
XXkb.button.xpm.3: ru15.xpm
XXkb.button.xpm.4:

XXkb.controls.add_when_start: yes
XXkb.controls.add_when_create: yes
XXkb.controls.add_when_change: no
XXkb.controls.focusout: no
XXkb.controls.two_state: yes
XXkb.controls.button_delete: yes

XXkb.bell.enable: no
XXkb.bell.percent: -50

XXkb.ignore.reverse: no

! XXkb.app_list.<match>.<action>: <list>
! <match> is one of "wm_class_class", "wm_class_name", "wm_name"
! <action> is one of "ignore", "start_alt", "alt_groupM" (M - 1..4) 
! For example:
!   XXkb.app_list.wm_class_class.ignore: *clock Fvwm*
!   XXkb.app_list.wm_class_name.start_alt: licq

XXkb.app_list.wm_class_class.ignore: Panel

10. Grab 3-way layout from http://www.tsu.ru/~pascal/other/xkb/ru-koi-3gr
    and put it into your /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/ru file

11. Make sure you start xxkb somewhere in your startup scripts

12. That's it even for picky types like me.

13. If you did not use 'microsoft' keyboard layout before then your
    mappings might stop working if they were based on 'meta' key. They
    should be changed in your window manager to 'alt' key. I also find
    particularly useful using extra key with windows sign on it to drag
    windows instead of default "alt+drag" in sawfish -- quite useful to let
    applications grab that sequence.

Resources used:
http://www.linux.org.ru/books/ru-linux-faq/rulinux.faq.html
http://www.tsu.ru/~pascal/other/xkb/
http://www.tsu.ru/~pascal/other/xxkb/README

--
Andrew Maltsev <am@amsoft.ru>, 19-Mar-2002