My Toshiba Satellite U200-XXX laptop died recently (as in two days ago). While setting up a replacement laptop, which I bought from the local “Plaisio Computers” store, I realized that I was looking for the left Alt key and kept constantly hitting the left “Windows” key. I had immediately replaced the Windows Vista installation of the laptop with a dump(8) / restore(8) of my original laptop’s FreeBSD installation, so I have no particular use for a “Windows” key.
Fortunately enough, X11 is a wonderful system. I can remap and swap keys to my heart’s desire, and this is precisely what I did just a few minutes ago:
keramida@kobe:/home/keramida$ hg log -v -p -r tip changeset: 145:a148a5c79c0e tag: tip user: Giorgos Keramidas date: Thu Jul 17 04:13:20 2008 +0300 files: .Xmodmap description: xmodmap: Replace the "Windows" keys with Alt_L and Alt_R A couple of extra `Meta' keys are more useful than the completely useless "Windows" flaggy bits. diff -r e34b7e6ea856 -r a148a5c79c0e .Xmodmap --- a/.Xmodmap Thu Jul 17 04:22:57 2008 +0300 +++ b/.Xmodmap Thu Jul 17 04:13:20 2008 +0300 @@ -32,3 +32,15 @@ keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L add Lock = Caps_Lock add Control = Control_L + +! +! Customizations for Turbo-X laptop. +! +! Make the Windows keys act the same as ALT. I don't really need an +! extra pair of ALT keys, but my fingers hit Windows keys far too often +! when I want to type meta-combos. This makes the windows keys more +! useful and my fingers more happy. +! + +keycode 115 = Alt_L +keycode 117 = Alt_R keramida@kobe:/home/keramida$
Neat. Now I don’t really care if my fingers slip and hit one of the “Windows flaggy bits”. That’s really really nice :-)
PS: In a followup post, when I catch up with $realwork I’ll write more about the move from an old-ish, crashed laptop to another one. Let’s just say, for now, that FreeSBIE saved the day!
This is a wonderful trick. Thank you for posting it :)
Comment by Markos — 2008-07-17 @ 08:08:54 |
Heh, I’m also using xmodmap on my macbook’s Debian GNU/Linux installation. There is a weird apple key where alt should normally be, so I remapped it to alt.
Comment by Nuclear — 2008-07-19 @ 01:13:55 |
[...] the you-will-need-this-someday department: Giorgos Keramidas describes how to change your keymap for the Windows key. [...]
Pingback by Linkdump for 07/18 · DragonFly BSD Digest — 2008-07-19 @ 01:57:15 |
it’s not a trick, it’s a configuration.
Comment by . — 2008-07-29 @ 10:06:50 |
Yes, it’s just a configuration option of X11. One that I found useful, and just blogged about it in a ‘neat, it worked’ manner :)
Comment by keramida — 2008-07-29 @ 10:27:18 |
[...] Tags: Computers, Free software, FreeBSD, Open source, Software Some time ago, I wrote in “One of the reasons why X11 rocks” that I had to move my FreeBSD installation from my dying Toshiba Satellite U-220 laptop to a [...]
Pingback by Moving a FreeBSD Installation to a New Laptop « Blog Pseudoaccidentale — 2008-09-14 @ 10:44:24 |