What it does
Onboard is an on-screen keyboard that reads the keyboard layout from the X server, with experimental Wayland support.
Onboard enters text through an on-screen keyboard and normally reads its X11 layout from the desktop’s X server. Check the session before choosing the setup. The project’s Wayland guide describes support as unstable and requires runtime dependencies plus access to /dev/uinput; desktop handling varies by compositor. It also warns that snippets can insert incorrectly when their characters are missing from the current layout, and that layout refresh may lag outside KDE. These conditions matter if the keyboard will be used across several languages or desktop sessions.
Strengths
- Uses the desktop's X keyboard layout
Watch out for
- Wayland support is experimental
Best for
- On-screen text entry in an X11 desktop
Sources
- Onboard in Launchpad (Oct 26, 2026)
- Onboard 1.4.4-6 (Oct 26, 2026)
- Running Onboard on Wayland (Oct 26, 2026)