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When I plug a USB keyboard into my Raspbian (buster) pi 3B+, and I try to use the pipe key | I get a tilda ~ instead. This is consistent across a bunch of keyboards that work well in other computers.

I see in raspi-config under "Localisation Options" I can "Change Keyboard Layout". There's a long list, so I pick something generic like "Logitech" and then it asks me to configure the "Keyboard layout". Here it presents a long list of options in Cyrillic and Greek and non-English languages but nothing that looks appropriate for USA/English, or even anything that looks Western-European. Even under something plausibly simple like "Frans" I see a huge list of choices, again with lots of Cyrillic and Greek that all look wrong, and make me worried my keyboard will become completely useless if I select one.

To be as clear as I can about version I'm running:

$ uname -a
Linux leopi6 4.19.66-v7+ #1253 SMP Thu Aug 15 11:49:46 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

$ cat /etc/os-release 
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="10"
VERSION="10 (buster)"
VERSION_CODENAME=buster
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"
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  • No "English (US)" option after you pick the keyboard? (Sorry, edited) – abolotnov Sep 18 '19 at 18:12
  • Nope. No English (US) option in sight. I've got Albanies or Yslandies or испанска — латиноамериканска or черногорска or lots in between. – Leopd Sep 18 '19 at 18:17
  • Wow, what are you running? If you picked Generic-101 key there will be no Eglish layouts to pick from when you scroll? – abolotnov Sep 18 '19 at 18:25
  • Raspbian buster - details in main question. Also, FWIW there's no "Generic-101" in the keyboard list. There's "Generies 101-sleutel PC" which google tells me is Afrikaans for "Generic 101 key PC". – Leopd Sep 18 '19 at 18:34
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    I've seen that raspi-config mess (to be fair, I don't think it is raspi-config that created it) using a fresh Raspbian lite buster install. It's totally broken, but you can do it manually. Gimme a minute to see if I can remember how. – goldilocks♦ Sep 18 '19 at 19:17
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Here it presents a long list of options in Cyrillic and Greek and non-English languages but nothing that looks appropriate for USA/English, or even anything that looks Western-European. Even under something plausibly simple like "Frans" I see a huge list of choices, again with lots of Cyrillic and Greek that all look wrong

I have seen this screen and it is clearly not working properly.

Edit /etc/default/keyboard and set:

XKBMODEL="pc101"
XKBLAYOUT="us"

The second one is what's most important; it was probably (gb). Then reboot. This should be permanent and affect both console and GUI mode.

See also man 5 keyboard for an explanation of where to find available options, etc.

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  • Thank you so much!! raspi-config is great when it works, but... – Leopd Sep 18 '19 at 19:56
  • This was far more straightforward for me than using raspi-config, which didn't seem to change my settings upon exit – Isaac Middlemiss Jan 13 at 21:04

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