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• Linux must know which keyboard I'm typing on to support different layouts for multiple keyboards simultaneously.

• xinput → list.c → list_xi2 → XIQueryDevice provides device IDs usable by setxkbmap.

• showkey and xev don't print keyboard IDs.

• There seems to be a connection between keyboards and /dev/input/event* devices, but it's not trivial (for example, I have a device ID 12, but no /dev/input/event12, and I have /dev/input/event1 but no device ID 1).

• One almost possible solution is to run xinput --test <ID> & for each keyboard ID and see which one returns something first. The problem with that is figuring out which "keyboards" are actually keyboards:

   $ xinput | grep keyboard ⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Sleep Button id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ WebCam SC-13HDL10931N id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=11 [slave keyboard (3)] 

• Linux must know which keyboard I'm typing on to support different layouts for multiple keyboards simultaneously.

• xinput → list.c → list_xi2 → XIQueryDevice provides device IDs usable by setxkbmap.

• showkey and xev don't print keyboard IDs.

• xinput list-props $ID shows where keyboard events are sent. However, using code from another answer it seems this device doesn't print anything to identify the keyboard.

• One almost possible solution is to run xinput --test <ID> & for each keyboard ID and see which one returns something first. The problem with that is figuring out which "keyboards" are actually keyboards:

   $ xinput | grep keyboard ⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Sleep Button id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ WebCam SC-13HDL10931N id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=11 [slave keyboard (3)] 

Which interface provides this information on Linux? Ideally it should work without X, but that's not a requirement.

Which interface provides this information on Linux? Ideally it should work without X, but that's not a requirement (there doesn't seem to be many tools which support this without X).