Remapping Keyboard Keys(Esc and Caps)

COMPUTER LINUX VIM

I use vim as an editor, and this comes with some curse. I press "ESC" a lot. And yet this key is located at an inconvenient location, at the top row of my keyboard. For a key I often use, I would rather it occurs somewhere closer to the home row.

The "CapsLock" key is one that I rarely use, yet its located at the home row. Furthermore, its use is redundant because I can always use the "SHIFT" key to do the same work.

I found a nifty trick on how to remap these keys on my keyboard in linux.

Open the terminal and type:

xmodmap -e "clear Lock" -e "keycode 9 = Caps_Lock NoSymbol Caps_Lock" -e "keycode 66 = Escape NoSymbol Escape"

If this does not work replace: clear Lock with remove Lock = Caps_Lock

xmodmap -e "remove Lock = Caps_Lock" -e "keycode 9 = Caps_Lock NoSymbol Caps_Lock" -e "keycode 66 = Escape NoSymbol Escape"

However, this change is temporary. On system restart the keyboard will be the old same.

To make the changes permanent within the system:

xmodmap -pke >~/.xmodmap
# Add this line to ~/.xinitrc
xmodmap .xmodmap

Another alternative is to use setxkbmap:

# replaces caps with escape functionality
setxkbmap -option caps:escape
# swaps capslock and escape
setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape

Add whatever command to the .xinitrc file to work.

This switch is not all hymns and praises because: