Hi Guys:

The potential of solutions involving Linux thin-clients (LTS) in regions like
Latin America is huge. Interested parties range from all-size companies to
government agencies to NGOs to schools/universities, etc. 
There's simply no money in these poor economies to spend in hardware/software
upgrades every year. That's why software piracy is rampant and
less-than-mediocre hardware abounds. In my country, Colombia, April 14 was the
deadline given by the government and the software producer's association to
legalize all pirate software (read: after being seriously pushed by Micr$oft).
Well, the outcome is rather funny or even sad in some cases: many
companies/organizations are adopting Linux and are installing StarOffice (even
under windoze) and many schools (specially the ones in the poorest areas) have
suspended their computer classes for the lack of M$ Office licences. As you
might already understand, these schools were keeping some kids from being out
in the streets engrosing the lists of crime and terrorism
perpetrators/victimes. 

After that out-of-the-topic introduction, let me tell you that I don't believe
thin-clients are the solution to the many problems in Latin America and my
country ;=) but at least are an alternative to some computer-related ones. The
only problem are/were SPANISH Keyboards. The current implementation of LTSP
only considers a US keyboard (understanable cause the developers 1. Don't have
spanish keyboards, 2. Don't speak spanish). 

Well, after some hours of dealing with keyboard layouts-symbols-models-etc
under X, and after understanding the XKB directory tree I came out with the
following solution for spanish (international) keyboards (if any of you guys
believe I'm missing something or have it wrong somewhere, please let me
know):

1. From /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols  to
/tftpboot/lts/ltsroot/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols copy the following files:

en_US
es
iso9995-3

2. Copy /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/keymap/xfree86 to
/tftpboot/lts/ltsroot/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb ; although these directory+file
are not (may not be) needed, the clue to the internationalization of keyboards
lies there. Read the file.

3. Edit your /tftpboot/lts/ltsroot/etc/rc.local file 

	Setion "Keyboard"
	  XkbKeycodes	"xfree86"
	  XkbTypes	"basic"
	  XbkCompat	"basic"
	  Xbksymbols	"en_US(pc105)+es
	  XkbGeometry	"pc"
	  XkbRules	"xfree86"
	  XkbModel	"pc102"
	  XkbLayout	"es"

4. Tips:

a. If you want X/XDM to start slightly faster say NO (N) to USE_XFS in the
/tftpboot/lts/ltsroot/etc/lts.conf file AND copy ALL your fonts from 
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts to /tftpboot/lts/ltsroot/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts.

b. Comment out (with #) lines 56 to 64 from file
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/es to avoid annoying messages on the console
(ctrl+alt+F1).  

The above solution applies to every international keyboard. You must copy the
appropriate files according to your language. 

As I mentioned, the clue to all international keyboards is in one sigle file
(xfree86) under //././keymap/ Read the file carefully, copy the correct files
and you language-specific keyboard will be up and running on your terminal
with no problems. 

Cheers,

Jorge Eduardo Nieto