I've been playing around with Ubuntu Linux (10.04) lately, and of course I had the need to type in Spanish. (I'm using Ubuntu right now
) Fortunately, it's pretty easy to switch the keyboard layout to type in Spanish:
Go to
System => Preferences => Keyboard.
Go to the "
Layouts" tab and click "
Add".
Choose your Spanish-language layout.
I chose to browse by language, and choose the "Spain" layout, which is the one I'm most familiar with. Even if I'm using an English keyboard, I prefer typing in Spanish with a Spanish keyboard layout, even though what the keys say don't match what they produce.
Edit: While you're viewing the "Keyboard Preferences" dialog and "Layout" tab (screenshot #2), you might also want to change the keyboard shortcut to quickly switch between layouts while typing. To do so, Click the "Options" button (lower left), click "Keys to change layout". I chose Alt + Shift which is the default key combination on Windows, and is what I'm used to.
A couple of related threads: