Q: I've installed xruskb and it works, but I don't see russian letters but see accented latin letters instead. A: You have to tune your applications to use proper russian fonts. See Cyrillic-HOWTO at ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/unmaintained/ (it is not only for linux) Q: I cannot input russian letters. A: There can be several reasons. If you use *-cyr key map, then it is important to have a recent version of XFree86 and proper localization, that is LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R, and XFree86 should be able to recognize the charset. On some versions of glibc is is needed to add a locale alias to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/locale.alias, a line containing ru_RU.koi8r ru_RU.KOI8-R If you use *-koi8 key maps (or different encoding), then sometimes it is important NOT to have a localization. It is a hack method anyway. See also Cyrillic-HOWTO on how to tune bash. Q: Which keyboard map should I use? A: If you have recent version of XFree86 and have proper localization (i.e. set LANG or LC_CTYPE to something like ru_RU.KOI8-R), use jcuken-cyr. Otherwise, try jcuken-koi8 or different encoding. If your keyboard lacks russian marking, you may prefer yawerty-* keymaps which have semi-phonetic correspondence between latin and russian letters. Experiment and find out what works for you better. Q: Why xrus is needed when there is XKB extension? A: First, there are X11R5 servers, which don't have XKB extension. Second, xrus works fine for many people and it is easy to set up, and it does not conflict with XKB.