Show keys pressed in Linux
Others have mentioned xev
, which is good when you're running X11. When you're at the console, however, showkey
is what you want.
And if you’re at an SSH session or a real terminal, you can use /usr/lib/ncurses/examples/demo_altkeys
(available in Debian in the ncurses-examples package).
Note that xev for "a" gives 38, while showkey for "a" gives 30, because xev reports scancodes, whereas showkey by default reports keycodes.
Also screenkey, a screencast tool that displays keys being pressed on-screen.
There is the xev
program for graphic mode - see the man page of xev.
On Ubuntu/Debian it is packed into the x11-utils
package.