How to swap Escape and Caps Lock for tty and X11

Question

I have done quite a lot of research on how to swap the Escape and Caps Lock keys. I achieved it while using X11 via my .xinitrc file and the following line of code:

setxkbdmap -option caps:swapescape

However, when I start a tty, it doesn't work. How can I get this to work while using a tty? Is it possible to use some kind of global option, like a custom keyboard layout that does not depend on X11?

I'm using Arch Linux, if that helps.

The output of dumpkeys | head -1 shows keymaps 0-2,4-6,8-10,12 for my current keyboard layout (de-latin1), should I put that output or the suggested output of keymaps 0-127 in the file? — Peter Arbeitsloser, Oct 25 '20 at 10:58
I'm not using Arch Linux, but maybe try adding XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:nocaps" to /etc/default/keyboard (it works in Debian with both vts and xorg). Otherwise, you can do it by hand with dumpkeys | sed 's/keycode *58 =.*/keycode 58 = Control/' | loadkeys (you may have to adjust the sed expression, check with showkey and dumpkeys | less before). — , Oct 25 '20 at 12:56
Sorry, that was about nocaps ;-) but it may still give you the idea how to tackle swapescape too. — , Oct 25 '20 at 12:59
If it doesn't exist, then it means that Arch Linux isn't using it. Try the manual method instead. — , Oct 25 '20 at 14:21
A related question is https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/479673/5132 . — JdeBP, Oct 25 '20 at 15:20
Though not very clean, you can put in /etc/profile or /etc/profile.d/, and make it conditional on the type of terminal: [ "$TERM" = linux ] && dumpkeys | ... | loadkeys. — , Oct 25 '20 at 15:29
@JdeBP The thing is, the only answer was about how to do it in debian and I'm using Arch, where the /etc/default/keyboard file doesn't exist... — Peter Arbeitsloser, Oct 25 '20 at 15:31
Okay, changed the question, because I did it for X11. Now I just need to do it for tty. Any ideas? — Peter Arbeitsloser, Oct 25 '20 at 16:09
This is not a duplicate question and actually might have some value for others. — Peter Arbeitsloser, Jan 27 '21 at 13:26

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '20 at 16:34

Step by step solution

X11

The following command sets the X11 keyboard correctly (de is my keyboard layout):

localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap de "" "" caps:swapescape

tty

The tty keyboard can be configured as follows:

Copy the correct keyboard layout file to a custom directory:

cp /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwertz/de-latin1.map.gz /usr/local/share/kbd/keymaps

(You will have to change that command depending on what keyboard layout you are using)

Change every occurency of Escape to Caps_Lock and every occurency of Caps_Lock to Escape in the copied file and rename it to something like de-latin1-custom.map.gz
Edit the /etc/vconsole.conf file to look like this:

KEYMAP="/usr/local/share/kbd/keymaps/de-latin1-custom.map.gz"

After rebooting the system the keyboard should be configured correctly for X11 and for tty.

How to swap Escape and Caps Lock for tty and X11

1 Answers1

Step by step solution

X11

tty