can't find a way to type brackets on powerbook g3

[domenico <domenico@terminusoftware.com>]

Hello everyone,
I'm moving to linux and I installed debian sarge on my old powerbook g3 
(lombard). Everyting worked fine and I added window maker to get a 
confortable developing platform with vi and gcc.
But I'm not able to type square and curly brackets...
I was trying option+(), option+shift+(), alt+..., ctrl+... 
alt+shift+..., ctrl+shift+..., almost with every character on the keyboard
Then I tried to compose ascii code (option+fn+123...), unsuccessfully, 
so I made some search on google (even some group) with keywords like 
"ascii debian ppc", "linux keyboard powerbook"... but I couldn't find 
anything...
where is my mistake?
thanks in advance
domenico