Show keys pressed in Linux

Question

In Windows, one can use Keyboard Jedi to show what keys are pressed on the keyboard.

Is there any way to show keys pressed in Linux?

Answer 1

Others have mentioned xev, which is good when you're running X11. When you're at the console, however, showkey is what you want.

And if you’re at an SSH session or a real terminal, you can use /usr/lib/ncurses/examples/demo_altkeys (available in Debian in the ncurses-examples package).

Note that xev for "a" gives 38, while showkey for "a" gives 30, because xev reports scancodes, whereas showkey by default reports keycodes.

Answer 2

Also screenkey, a screencast tool that displays keys being pressed on-screen.

Answer 3

 chris@retina:~$ xinput list
 ⎡ Virtual core pointer                     id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
 ⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer               id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
 ⎜   ↳ bcm5974                                  id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
 ⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:1028  id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
 ⎣ Virtual core keyboard                    id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
     ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard              id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ Power Button                             id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ Power Button                             id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ Sleep Button                             id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)            id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad    id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ daskeyboard                              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
     ↳ daskeyboard                              id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
 chris@retina:~$ xinput test 14
 key release 36 
 key press   43 
 hkey release 43 
 key press   26 
 ekey release 26 
 key press   46 
 lkey release 46 
 key press   46 
 lkey release 46 
 key press   32 
 okey release 32 
 key press   37 
 key press   54 
 ^C
 chris@retina:~$ 

Answer 4

The better command that I know for this functionality is showkey, with parameter -a.

You could try, and Ctrl + D to exit:

showkey -a

Answer 5

There is the xev program for graphic mode - see the man page of xev.

On Ubuntu/Debian it is packed into the x11-utils package.

Answer 6

If you are looking for something that graphically shows you what key is pressed currently (perhaps for the corner of a screencast), key-mon might be the ticket.

Answer 7

You can also use evtest. In some situations, it is better than xev as it shows keys even when a key is already captured.

To install under Ubuntu/Linux Mint, do

sudo apt-get install evtest

to run sudo evtest and pick a device number.

Example output:

$ sudo evtest
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0:    Lid Switch
/dev/input/event1:    Power Button
/dev/input/event2:    Power Button
/dev/input/event3:    AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
/dev/input/event4:    ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad
/dev/input/event5:    Logitech Logitech G930 Headset
/dev/input/event6:    Video Bus
/dev/input/event7:    HDA Intel HDMI HDMI/DP,pcm=8
/dev/input/event8:    HDA Intel HDMI HDMI/DP,pcm=7
/dev/input/event9:    HDA Intel HDMI HDMI/DP,pcm=3
/dev/input/event10:    HDA Intel PCH Headphone
/dev/input/event11:    HDA Intel PCH Mic
/dev/input/event12:    WebCam SC-10HDP12B24N
/dev/input/event13:    ELAN Touchscreen
Select the device event number [0-13]: 5
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x3 vendor 0x46d product 0xa1f version 0x101
Input device name: "Logitech Logitech G930 Headset"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
    Event code 114 (KEY_VOLUMEDOWN)
    Event code 115 (KEY_VOLUMEUP)
    Event code 163 (KEY_NEXTSONG)
    Event code 164 (KEY_PLAYPAUSE)
    Event code 165 (KEY_PREVIOUSSONG)
    Event code 256 (BTN_0)
    Event code 257 (BTN_1)
    Event code 258 (BTN_2)
    Event code 259 (BTN_3)
    Event code 260 (BTN_4)
    Event code 261 (BTN_5)
    Event code 262 (BTN_6)
    Event code 263 (BTN_7)
    Event code 264 (BTN_8)
    Event code 265 (BTN_9)
  Event type 4 (EV_MSC)
    Event code 4 (MSC_SCAN)
Properties:
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 1412585327.807585, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00b5
Event: time 1412585327.807585, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 163 (KEY_NEXTSONG), value 1
Event: time 1412585327.807585, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1412585327.927557, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00b5
Event: time 1412585327.927557, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 163 (KEY_NEXTSONG), value 0
Event: time 1412585327.927557, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

Answer 8

If you're at a shell prompt, you can press Ctrl-v then the key of interest to see what the output is. For example, on my system, pressing Ctrl-v then Right Arrow shows ^[[C which means Escape, Left Bracket, C.

As others have mentioned, xev is the way to go for X11.

Answer 9

xev | grep 'keycode'
    state 0x0, keycode 36 (keysym 0xff0d, Return), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
    state 0x4, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
    state 0x4, keycode 52 (keysym 0x7a, z), same_screen YES,
    state 0x4, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 54 (keysym 0x63, c), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 52 (keysym 0x7a, z), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 54 (keysym 0x63, c), same_screen YES,

Answer 10

You'd be wanting xev.

Answer 11

If you only want to see a human-friendly-ish output of the key pressed, you can use this:

xev | sed -n 's/[ ]*state.* \([^ ]*\)).*/\1/p'

Note you'll get the keypress output on both keydown and keyup.