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Killing the CAPS LOCK Key Revisited from May 21, 2017

 For over a decade, I have been interested in disabling the damn CAPS LOCK key. I frequently press it accidentally and it is a continuing aggravation. Trying several methods, I found one that works and thought I would update the post and try to get the formatting correct.

CAPS LOCK KILLED SUCCESS!!

I stumbled upon the file /etc/default/keyboard. It reads:

# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE

# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.

XKBMODEL=pc105

XKBLAYOUT=us

XKBVARIANT=

XKBOPTIONS=

BACKSPACE=guess

Consulting the man page for keyboard reveals the following interesting information:

KEYBOARD(5)             

Console-setup User's Manual    

NAME

keyboard - keyboard configuration file

DESCRIPTION

       The  keyboard file describes the properties of the keyboard. It is read by setupcon(1) in order to configure the keyboard on the  console.   In Debian  systems  the  default  keyboard layout is described in /etc/default/keyboard and it is shared between X and the console.

       The specification of the keyboard layout in the keyboard file is  based on the XKB options XkbModel, XkbLayout, XkbVariant and XkbOptions.  Unfortunately, there is little documentation how to use  them.   Description  of all possible values for these options can be found in the file xorg.lst.

       You might want to read “The XKB Configuration Guide” by Kamil Toman and Ivan U. Pascal:

http://www.xfree86.org/current/XKB-Config.html

       Other possible readings are:

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_KeyBoard_extension

http://pascal.tsu.ru/en/xkb/

http://www.charvolant.org/~doug/xkb/

The complete XKB-specification can be found on

http://xfree86.org/current/XKBproto.pdf

       The file keyboard consists of variable settings in POSIX format:

              VARIABLE=VALUE

Only  one assignment is allowed per line.  Comments (starting with '#') are also allowed.

A descriptions of options, other errata and some examples follow that.

Of interest to use are those associated with XKBOPTIONS and examples of that are given.

EXAMPLES

       The following configuration will give you the standard US QWERTY layout us). The  key will act as a compose key (compose:menu) and will act as third control key (ctrl:nocaps).

           XKBLAYOUT=us

           XKBVARIANT=

          XKBOPTIONS=compose:menu,ctrl:nocaps

       In the following configuration the right   key  (grp:toggle)  will toggle between US QWERTY layout (us) and Greek (gr) layout.  The option grp_led:scroll is ignored on the console but in X in means to  use  the     ScrollLock  keyboard  led  as  indicator  for the current layout (US or Greek).

           XKBLAYOUT=us,gr

           XKBVARIANT=

          XKBOPTIONS=grp:toggle,grp_led:scroll

       In the following configuration the  +  key  combination will  toggle grp:ctrl_shift_toggle) between French keyboard (fr) without dead keys (nodeadkeys) and British (gb) “Dvorak” (dvorak) keyboard.

       The  right key will be a compose-key (compose:rwin) and the right  key will function as AltGr (lv3:lalt_switch).

           XKBLAYOUT=fr,gb          XKBVARIANT=nodeadkeys,dvorak          XKBOPTIONS=grp:ctrl_shift_toggle,compose:rwin,lv3:ralt_switch

My goal is to disable the CAPSLOCK key and turn the left Windows key into a RETURN key. Perusing xorg.lst we find:

caps:none      Caps Lock is disabled

lv3:enter_switch     Enter on keypad

Therefore, in /etc/default/keyboard we enter:

XKBOPTIONS=caps:none,lwin:enter_switch

. . . and reboot. Your comments are always welcomed, especially other ways to kill the capslock key.

RESOURCES







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Location: Virginia Beach, VA 23451, USA

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