3

I was interested in installing Arch (or more specifically archbang) but could not figure out how to remap CAPSLOCK to ESC.

I tried loadkeys, but it had an error: could not get a file descriptor referring to the console

I'm used to using GNOME, where it is as easy as going into a menu and switching them. How do I do this on Arch?

user339365
  • 195

2 Answers2

7

I am using this in my ~/.Xmodmap:

! who needs CapsLock anyway
clear Lock
keycode 66 = Escape

It only disables CapsLock so basically [CapsLock] and [Esc] act the same way on my system.

I also have following line in ~/.xinitrc to load my customized keyboard map whenever X starts.

if [ -s ~/.Xmodmap ]; then
    xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
fi

You will find more solutions on the arch-forum.

The following solutions are just copied from the above link for reference.

This should be put in ~/.Xmodmap to switch both Keys. You also have to load your modified .Xmodmap file from .xinitrc.

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
add Lock = Escape
keysym Caps_Lock = Escape
keysym Escape = Caps_Lock

Or if you prefer another program instead of xmodmap, add following line to ~/.xinitrc:

setxkbmap -option caps:escape
cee
  • 410
0

Also documented in the official docs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xmodmap#Turn_CapsLock_into_Control

Basically three steps:

  1. Dump the current key map using xmodmap
  2. Modify the keymap & apply
  3. Configure system to load custom setup on startup

Gotcha: Need to clear previous maps before apply new maps (documented).

prasanthv
  • 231