blog/source/_posts/2013-10-16-permanent-remap-keys-in-x11.markdown
2015-01-19 13:16:21 +01:00

56 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown

---
layout: post
title: "Permanent Remap Keys in X11"
date: 2013-10-16 10:40
comments: true
categories:
- X11
- KBD
- evdev
- linux
- keyboard
description: "Using evdev_key_remap to globally remap keys in x11"
---
Because my shift key got broken, I remapped Caps Lock to Shift using xmodmap:
```
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Shift_L
add Shift = Shift_L
```
However these settings got sometimes lost. (ex: after the driver was reloaded after suspend).
Finally I found event_key_remap patch from [here](http://www.thenautilus.net/SW/xf86-input-evdev/en),
which allows to permanently redefine keys in the xorg.conf.
To apply the patch under archlinux simply install [xf86-input-evdev-remap](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xf86-input-evdev-remap/?setlang=de) from AUR:
yaourt -S xf86-input-evdev-remap
To track down the key, you want to remap use `xev` on the terminal.
Just type the wanted keys a few times. The output will be something like
the following:
```
KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x1e00001,
root 0x8e, subw 0x0, time 5672767, (611, 262), root:(613, 288),
state 0x1, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
```
The interesting value here is the `keycode`.
Use this code to build your final xorg.conf.
In my case this was:
```
#/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-kb-layout.conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Keyboard Defaults"
MatchIsKeyboard "yes"
Option "XkbLayout" "de" # Replace this with your layout
Option "event_key_remap" "58=50" # Caps Lock Key = Shift
EndSection
```