There is external keyboard support now. Under System, called extkbd. Is that your work? I can set the layout etc. for the Logitech Elite Keyboard - but it doesn't look like any of the applications would care about it yet. They still handle internal and external keyboard the same way. I use the internal setting "Switzerland" (since I have got a Swiss version).

(BTW: Why the heck are guys at maemo.org talking about the N900 and get answers talking about Symbian? And for using external keyboard: DOS-Box and even console users like to have an ESC, a TAB and an ALT-key and the F-keys of course!)

Regards
Peter