Strange. According to the README the problem occurs with keyboard layouts that *aren't* US. Have you got it actually configured as a US keyboard in debian?

This is the section from the README...

Q: I can't type \ or : in DOSBox.
A: This is a known problem. It only occurs if your keyboard layout isn't US.
Some possible fixes:
1. Switch your keyboard layout.
2. Use / instead.
3. Open dosbox.conf and change usescancodes=false to usescancodes=true.
4. Add the commands you want to execute to the "configfile".
5. Start the keymapper (CTRL-F1 or add -startmapper switch to DOSBox).
6. Use ALT-58 for : and ALT-92 for \.
7. for \ try the keys around "enter". For ":" try shift and the keys
between "enter" and "l" (US keyboard layout).
8. Use keyb.com from FreeDOS (http://projects.freedos.net/keyb/).

yup, pretty sure
(this is a section from my xorg.conf)

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "en_US"
EndSection

Maybe changing the "usescancodes" option helps?

nope, did not seem to work

the problem is a bit more broad it seems,

:"{}<>?

any special keys that require shift do not seem to work, shift does work like THIS.

any other ideas?

This sounds like a SDL issue. Did you compile 0.65 yourself or was it an RPM? Maybe compiling it yourself helps. What version of SDL do you have on your machine (if you are compiling it yourself)?

thanks, yeah you were right, I was compiling from source btw.

Basically it was fixed after I dled a bunch of sdl packages.

Thanks again.