Using second keyboard for for special characters

Question

I currently having an unused keyboard (a HP's KBRF1921 to be exact). I always need to type some Greek characters such as αβɣ and latin character as abc.

It'd be great if I could use one for latin and map another one for Greek. Having go to charmap or insert symbol everytime i want to type them is somewhat annoying all the times. There's already one asked here: How can I use a second USB keyboard for special keys under Linux? but the question is not currently answered yet and it's narrow for linux only and usb. My current keyboard uses PS/2 in order to save off some USB ports. And there's another one here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/238460/discussions/1/540741859026417095/ but their solution is for games.

I'm using both Linux and Windows so what applies for either platform is welcome.

Answer 1

Part I Linux:

On many Linux distribution you can easily add more than one language and switch among them with a keyboard shortcut, usually set Left Alt + Shift.

If you want to physically install 2 keyboards you can follow what suggested in Two keyboards on one computer...
First you need to identify the Device ID e.g. with xinput

xinput -list | grep -i key

Then you can set the layout using setxkbmap with something like

setxkbmap -device <NUMBER OF 2nd DEVICE> gr

Some references:

• Always man xinput and man setxkbmap

• You can use something more complex too: from here e.g.

  setxkbmap 'pl,gr' -variant ',polytonic' -option 'grp:alt_shift_toggle'
  

Part II Windows:

If you do not want to Add an input language as is suggested since from Vista

You can edit documents in multiple languages by changing the language (the input language) in which you type. Input languages are included with Windows, but you need to add them to your list of languages before you can use them.

in another question of SE, Using multiple keyboards with different keyboard layouts in Windows, it is suggested this program RightKeyboard.

On some forum you can find proposed to use HID macros a software for sending keyboard macros activated from different USB devices...

If you want instead to follow a tutorial on how change keyboard input language you can find interesting the link above.

Note that even here you can switch between 2 language layout as easy as to press Left Alt + Shift.

Reference:

• Using multiple keyboards with different keyboard layouts in windows
• Windows 7: 2 keyboards - 2 sets of inputs? Possible?

PS> A less then 4$ and some time alternative solution: transparent stickers for keyboard to mark the Greek letters you want on the non Greek keyboard. Somehow an hardware solution too :-)