How to remap CAPS LOCK on Wayland?

Question

Before Fedora switched to Wayland I used this .Xmodmap file to use my CapsLock Key to reach German Umlauts:

keycode 66 = Mode_switch Multi_key
keycode 20 = minus underscore ssharp
keycode 34 = bracketleft braceleft udiaeresis Udiaeresis
keycode 47 = semicolon colon odiaeresis Odiaeresis
keycode 48 = apostrophe quotedbl adiaeresis Adiaeresis

On Wayland this does not work any more - CapsLock would just work as before.

Is there a way to achieve the same result in Wayland, too?

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered May 14 '17 at 14:42

15

For gnome you can use

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['caps:ctrl_modifier']"

While the preferred way for X is now

setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier

instead of xmodmap i believe. See this bugreport

answered May 14 '17 at 14:42

anon

151
3

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 27 '23 at 11:38

For completeness: Under KWin/KDE you can remap Caps-Lock (and a few other control keys) quite flexibly using System settings → Input Devices → Keyboard → Advanced.

In particular you can set the Key to choose the 3rd level to Caps Lock to achieve your particular configuration.

– Much better than using Alt Gr when programming and losing Caps Lock in return is not really a loss at all.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 06 '18 at 16:22

2

For sway you can use:

export XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS=caps:escape

before running:

sway

reference https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki

answered Sep 06 '18 at 16:22

Neil Billingham

121

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 15 '25 at 13:39

1

In my case, setxkbmap didn't work, and I used the KDE system settings:

Settings -> Keyboard -> Key Bindings -> Configure Keyboard Options

answered Apr 15 '25 at 13:39

Krish

111
2

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 21 '23 at 10:01

Here is a script which change Capslock to Ctrl, and change rightAlt to Capslock for GNOME + Wayland for Arch linux.

https://gist.github.com/zw963/e8156358b2029c4f5a6f0d57fb9f6143

Script contents is:


#! /bin/bash
if ! fgrep -qs 'ctrl:new_ctrl  =   +new_ctrl(new_ctrl)' /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev; then
    sudo sed -i.bak '/ctrl:nocaps[[:blank:]]=[[:blank:]]+ctrl(nocaps)/a

  ctrl:new_ctrl  =   +new_ctrl(new_ctrl)
' /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev
fi
cat <<'HEREDOC' |sudo tee /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/new_ctrl
partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "new_ctrl" {
    replace key <CAPS> { [ Control_L ] };
    modifier_map Control { <CAPS>, <LCTL> };
    replace key <RALT> { [ Caps_Lock ] };
    modifier_map Lock { <RALT> };
};
HEREDOC
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['ctrl:new_ctrl']"
for to disable this run
gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options

How to remap CAPS LOCK on Wayland?

5 Answers5

for to disable this run

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options