Typing umlauts on an english keyboard

[Andrew Perrin <aperrin@email.unc.edu>]

Okay folks - I've been searching with no luck on this, so would appreciate
some advice. I need to type some German texts, which means umlauts over
some o/O, a/A, and u/U characters, and preferably the beta-like character
"doppel-s".  I've tried:

xmodmap -e "keycode 38 = a A adiaeresis Adiaeresis"

and it doesn't complain, but it also doesn't do anything. What do people
do for this case?

Thanks.

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Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
 Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
      269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA