Raspberry pi on-screen keyboard

Because I don’t have any usb keyboard at home, other than my big and bulky laptop stand, it is a bit of a challenge to type on a Raspberry Pi. I’ve even went as far as copying letters one by one with a mouse to type something.

But now that is solved thanks to this forum post where JeremyF and Paenny explain how to get an on-screen keyboard.

The summary:

  • type: sudo apt-get install matchbox-keyboard
  • type ‘y’ say yes to installing
  • create a new file on the Desktop called ‘keyboard.sh’:
    #!/bin/bash
    matchbox-keyboard
  • Then open a terminal and write:
    cd Desktop
    chmod +x keyboard.sh
  • Now you can double click that file and execute it to start a big on-screen keyboard 🙂

PS: If you start the keyboard from a terminal, and then use that keyboard to type ctrl-c in that terminal your Raspberry will go nuts.

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