Question

xinitrc xmodmap question concerning remapping keyboards

Asked by: asegner

I am running SUSE 9.1 and use KDE when I want a GUI.  I have remapped my keyboard on the VC so that shift turns off the caps lock (like old typewriters) but cannot seem to get the same behavior to happen in X.  My system runs as a server so usually boots into level 3 and I use startx when I need to.  So far I have tried adding the appropriate lines into a file ~/.Xmodmap  but that didnt seem to pick up.  Then I tried creating a file ~/.xinitrc and calling xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap.  but then X refused to start.  I believe the .Xmodmap is correct because when kde is running and i call xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap from a shell window in KDE, my keyboard behavior changes to what i described above.  So the issue I need addressed is how to have that .Xmodmap automatically loaded when I call startx.

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Asked On
2004-12-07 at 07:11:12ID21233343
Tags

xinitrc

,

xmodmap

Topic

X-Windows Window Manager

Participating Experts
3
Points
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Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: jleviePosted on 2004-12-07 at 10:37:52ID: 12766807

Edit ~/.xinitrc and add a line to execute xmodmap before kde starts. For example I need to run xrdb before starting Gnome so my xinitrc looks like:

xrdb -merge .Xresources
exec gnome-session

 

by: asegnerPosted on 2004-12-07 at 11:16:33ID: 12767154

im not sure if that will help, im not in front of that system at the moment to test, but in Suse's system wide /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc which i believe is called if you dont supply a ~/.xinitrc there is a section of code:

if test "$XSESSION_IS_UP" != "yes" ; then
    XLIBDIR=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11
    test -r $XLIBDIR/Xmodmap    && xmodmap $XLIBDIR/Xmodmap
    test -r $HOME/.Xmodmap      && xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap
    test -r $XLIBDIR/Xresources && xrdb -load -retain $XLIBDIR/Xresources
    test -r $HOME/.Xdefaults    && xrdb -I$HOME -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults
    test -r $HOME/.Xresources   && xrdb -I$HOME -merge $HOME/.Xresources
fi

so for some reason it is not pulling my $HOME/.Xmodmap

my ~/.Xmodmap looks like:

!!  Makes Caps Lock into a Shift Lock
clear Lock
keycode 66 = Shift_Lock
add Lock = Shift_Lock

I will try jlevie suggestoin later but right now I am still accepting any furthur suggestions as I want to make the least amount of changes as possible.

 

by: gheistPosted on 2004-12-07 at 16:09:27ID: 12769543

setxkbmap -option caps:shift

kde control panel gave me this,
not sure how to inroduce it with xinitrc

 

by: asegnerPosted on 2004-12-07 at 18:12:19ID: 12770112

Thank you for the response gheist however setxkbmap -option: caps:shift does not produce the desired behavior.

 

by: asegnerPosted on 2004-12-07 at 18:42:56ID: 12770237

So i added verbose output any time xmodmap was called and all the commands were being called.  So the file was getting pulled and read.  So i looked more around KDE and found Keyboard Shortcuts in the Control Center. and turns out they have keyboard layourts which bascially reloads a fancy keyboard layout after X has loaded which is why my changes were getting erased. I disabled keyboard layourts and everything works now. Thank you for the comments.

 

by: moduloPosted on 2004-12-12 at 01:48:32ID: 12803298

Closed, 500 points refunded.

modulo
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