Creating a custom keyboard layout

[Freiberg]

There have been some posts on this forum about custom keyboard layouts, but the latest one was more than three years ago, and is outdated. I found the following code for a custom dvorak international keyboard layout here, but it directs me to copy this code into the folder /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc, a folder which does not seem to exist in 9.10 or 9.04.

partial default alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "basic" {
    name[Group1]= "Dvorak international extended";

    // Alphanumeric section

    key <TLDE> { [       dead_grave, dead_tilde	]	};

    key <AE01> { [	    1,	exclam, exclamdown, U00B9 ] };
    key <AE02> { [	    2,	at, U00B2 ]		};
    key <AE03> { [	    3,	numbersign, U00B3 ]	};
    key <AE04> { [	    4,	dollar, currency, U00A3	] };
    key <AE05> { [	    5,	percent, EuroSign ]	};
    key <AE06> { [	    6,	dead_circumflex, U00BC ]};
    key <AE07> { [	    7,	ampersand, U00BD ]	};
    key <AE08> { [	    8,	asterisk, U00BE	]	};
    key <AE09> { [	    9,	parenleft, U2018 ]	};
    key <AE10> { [	    0,	parenright, U2019 ]	};
    key <AE11> { [ bracketleft,	braceleft, guillemotleft ] };
    key <AE12> { [ bracketright, braceright, guillemotright ] };

    key <AD01> { [  dead_acute, dead_diaeresis, U00E4, U00C4 ] };
    key <AD02> { [	comma,	less, U00E5, U00C5 ]	};
    key <AD03> { [      period,	greater, U00F6, U00D6 ] };
    key <AD04> { [	    p,	P, paragraph, degree ]	};
    key <AD05> { [	    y,	Y, U00FC, U00DC	]	};
    key <AD06> { [	    f,	F		]	};
    key <AD07> { [	    g,	G, U00E7, U00C7	]	};
    key <AD08> { [	    c,	C, copyright, U00A2 ]	};
    key <AD09> { [	    r,	R, registered	]	};
    key <AD10> { [	    l,	L		]	};
    key <AD11> { [	slash,	question, questiondown ]};
    key <AD12> { [	equal,	plus, U00D7, U00F7 ]	};

    key <AC01> { [	    a,	A, U00E1, U00C1	]	};
    key <AC02> { [	    o,	O, U00E5, U00C5	]	};
    key <AC03> { [	    e,	E, U00E9, U00E9	]	};
    key <AC04> { [	    u,	U, U00FA, U00DA	]	};
    key <AC05> { [	    i,	I, U00ED, U00CD	]	};
    key <AC06> { [	    d,	D, U00F0, U00D0	]	};
    key <AC07> { [	    h,	H 		]	};
    key <AC08> { [	    t,	T, U00FE, U00DE	]	};
    key <AC09> { [	    n,	N, U00F1, U00D1	]	};
    key <AC10> { [	    s,	S, ssharp, section ]	};
    key <AC11> { [	minus,	underscore, yen	]	};
    key <BKSL> { [  backslash, bar, U00F8, brokenbar ]	};

    key <AB01> { [   semicolon,	colon,ae, AE ] };
    key <AB02> { [	    q,	Q, U00F8, U00D8	]	};
    key <AB03> { [	    j,	J 		]	};
    key <AB04> { [	    k,	K		]	};
    key <AB05> { [	    x,	X		]	};
    key <AB06> { [	    b,	B		]	};
    key <AB07> { [	    m,	M, U00B5	]	};
    key <AB08> { [	    w,	W		]	};
    key <AB09> { [	    v,	V		]	};
    key <AB10> { [	    z,	Z		]	};

    include "level3(ralt_switch)"
};

As this is the only thing I felt Windows did better than Ubuntu (custom keyboard layouts), I would love to be able to change the layout and finally seal the deal with Ubuntu. Any help would be appreciated, and thank you for your time in reading this post.

UPDATE:

Roberto.tomas has written an excellent entry in ubuntu wiki about this, and includes the general information of creating a custom keyboard layout, which can be found here. For this specific keyboard layout information, however, continue reading.