I am using a 101 US keyboard and sometimes I want to type characters that are not represented by a key. For example: the "ae" in encyclopædia or the other two, ø and å, which are commonly used in danish. These, and their capitals, are easily typed in DOS by using ALT-num so there is no need for other keyboards or alternate code pages, but I cannot locate any such sophistication in linux... it doesn't work. What is the equivalent in linux? What is the best way? (I am currently using Kubuntu dapper)

Go to the accesories menu and find "Character Map" and open it. On the left is the base for the characters. If you go to the "common" you will find most of the common ligatures. They are all in there somewhere :-)

Good luck and enjoy!

Sometimes just asking a question will present the answer. I've been "googling" for quite a while without any results. Now that I posted the above, the answer came from the following site: http://cyberborean.wordpress.com/200...ose-key-magic/

To quote: "In KDE, open “Keyboard layout” configuration panel (Control Center → Regional & Accessibility → Keyboard Layout) and select “Enable xkb options” checkbox on “Xkb options” tab. Then scroll the options list down to “Compose key position” section and select a checkbox for a key you want to use as a Compose."

This key can be used in combination with various options to enter ligatures and other extended latin letters with diacritic marks and probably much more than I'll never need. I wonder why it's so hidden. Anyway... I'm happy now!

Thanks for your quick reply FewClues. I'm interested in alternatives. Problem is, I can't find any "accesories menu", nor "Character Map". Perhaps that's a way in another release or distro? I'm using Kubuntu-dapper. (I could also just be a brick short! :))