Top row on keyboard has a different behavior when pressing alt and using a non mac keyboard

Question

I use a MacBook Pro as a Laptop and mainly Linux to work. Mostly i like to use the same Keyboard (Ducky one 2 SF) for both devices. I chose the same keyboard settings (German) in Mac OS as in all other Systems. My Problem is, that the top row on mac doesn't work as expected. It still works as if I use a Magic keyboard.

For example, I want to get [ with alt 8, but instead I get {.

One solution would be to remap all the different keys, which doesn't look as the best way for me. Is there any way to just use the natural keyboard layout of my selected keyboard?

Answer 1

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources and make sure the only item on the list is "German Standard" (and not "German").

The Apple "German" input source puts [ ] { } on alt 5689, while the German Standard input source should put them on alt 8970, and there are various other differences, such as @ being on alt L for "German" instead of on alt Q for "German Standard".

Because the differences are on the alt level, the printing on an Apple "German" keyboard can look the same as that on a "German Standard" keyboard, except perhaps for where @ appears as the 3rd item on a key. So it is easy to choose the wrong input source.