One option is to have a shortcut to always switch to first keyboard layout. For example, I have WIN+Space to switch to the next layout and LCTRL+LWIN to always switch to the first one.
How to pick that option depends on the program you use to pick the keyboard layouts and switching options. Here are 2 examples:
- If it is
localectl set-x11-keymap
from command line, then the options for switching are passed in the OPTIONS
argument (see man localectl
for the syntax and "OPTIONS > Switching to another layout" section of man xkeyboard-config
for the list of options). For example, on my laptop it looks
as localectl set-x11-keymap "us,ru" thinkpad "" "grp:win_space_toggle,grp:lctrl_lwin_rctrl_menu"
. Current values for arguments of localectl set-x11-keymap
can be seen in the output of setxkbmap -query
. New settings work only after restart of xorg (e.g. after rebooting the OS).
- In cinnamon GUI (which internally calls
/usr/bin/python2 /usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py keyboard
) it is "Menu > Keyboard > Layouts > Options > Switching to another layout".
In both cases you may want to pick one of the options with the words "to first layout" in the description. Then (assuming, e.g., that the first layout is us
and can be used to type in the password) you can press LCTRL+LWIN to switch to us
and type the password.