Remote desktop Windows -> Linux. How to use Linux keyboard layout?

The trouble is that Xrdp doesn't seem to support X windows keyboard mappings properly.

It is an old problem discussed from 2012 and still patched somehow in the same way in 2019 (read the comments of the previous link).

In your case, since remote desktop takes the precedence, it seems logic to install the proper layout (colemak) on the windows machine and switch to that to use it in the virtual environment too. Since you are not in the possibility to install any driver I see only a couple of solutions:

1. If you can install some program for the current user, you may try to use another program to connect with your emulated environment, choosing one that allows you to select the host keyboard layout. I remember that No Machine worked well once...you can try it (there is a free version too).

2. To remap the keyboard inside Linux. From the this link you can download a file (km-0809.ini) with some mapping already made, and modify it for your purposes.

   sudo chown xrdp.xrdp /etc/xrdp/km-0809.ini 
   sudo chmod 644 /etc/xrdp/km-0809.ini
   sudo service xrdp restart
   

I would install the Colemak keyboard layout on the Windows PC first then choose the Colemak layout when accessing the virtual linux installation:

https://colemak.com/Windows

There is also a portable version available: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=213088&package_id=264387

Of course, given you are using an unprivileged windows machine, this may not work.

The local keyboard is not a resource that Remote desktop can make available on the remote computer. The most it can do is allow the Windows key combinations to be transparently passed over or locally executed:

The physical keys are handled by the local operating system, which then passes them to Remote desktop. Any translation of the received key-codes to characters is done locally, and not remotely.

Therefore the options as I see them are limited:

• Install the same keyboard layout on both local and remote computers
• Use a key-mapper product on the local computer for the problematic keys
• Use a key-mapper product on the remote computer for the problematic keys