Shift Lock / Caps Lock

Quelle¹⁾

If you have loadkeys (as you would under Linux), this should do the trick:

loadkeys /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/emacs2.kmap.gz

To reset to the defaults (you may have to switch to another tty and back to undo ctrl-lock):

 loadkeys -d

Under Redhat 8.0, just enable the following line in /etc/X11/XF86Config

        Option      "XkbOptions"        "ctrl:swapcaps"

Replace „swapcaps“ with „nocaps“ to turn both keys into „Control.“

With X, there are at least 2 different ways to remap the keys. One is using xmodmap. For example, man xmodmap shows how to swap the left control key and the CapsLock key:

 !
 ! Swap Caps_Lock and Control_L
 !
 remove Lock = Caps_Lock
 remove Control = Control_L
 keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock
 keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
 add Lock = Caps_Lock
 add Control = Control_L                 

Many people don't want a CapsLock key at all. They can change the CapsLock key to a ControlKey? by using the following lines in xmodmap:

 clear Lock
 keycode 0x7e = Control_R
 add Control = Control_R         

Maybe you have to change the keycode 0x7e. You can find the keycodes with xev. I Furthermore, this only works if you don't have a right control key. I hope somebody has a solution which does not have this restriction.

This solution might be the easiest one. If you do not have a problem owning a dead key in your keyboard you might disable CapsLock at all:

 "remove lock = Caps_Lock"  (or just: "clear lock")

A better solution might be this sequence, which is keycode independent and does not remove existing control keys:

 remove Lock = Caps_Lock
 remove Control = Control_L
 keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
 add Lock = Caps_Lock
 add Control = Control_L

Now, you can use another solution which uses xkb. For that, you will have to find the sybols directory on your unix system. There, you add a file which might be called 'ctrl' containing the following:

 
 // eliminate the caps lock key completely (replace with control)
 partial modifier_keys
 xkb_symbols "nocaps" {
     key <CAPS>  {  symbols[Group1]= [ Control_L ] };
     modifier_map  Control { <CAPS>, <LCTL> };
 };

This eliminates the caps lock key if included in a keymap. We can do this by changing the file en_US:

 xkb_symbols "pc101" {
     include "ctrl(nocaps)"
     key <RALT> { [ Mode_switch,  Multi_key ] };


     augment "us(pc101)"
     include "iso9995-3(basic101)"


     modifier_map Mod3 { Mode_switch };
 };

You can then add the keyboard using a line like:

 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/xkbcomp -w 1 -R/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb -xkm -m en_US keymap/xfree86 0:0

Now, unfortunately there are probably errors in the text above. Please correct and make it working for other systems than RedHat Linux.

From WhyNotUseEmacs:

Add the following to your Xmodmap (on many linuxes the default Xmodmap is located at /etc/X11/Xmodmap):

 clear lock
 add control = Caps_Lock

You can activate this in a already-running X using

 xmodmap /etc/X11/Xmodmap   # or whatever the name of your modmap file is.

This will turn your caps lock into a control key. You won't have a caps lock key anymore, so make sure caps lock is off when you do this. ;) – KevinStone? If you get stuck and find yourself without a control key use xev to find the keycode of your control and caps lock keys. Then use the following to restore the default config.

 remove Lock = Caps_Lock
 remove Control = Control_L
 keycode <keycodeofcontrol> = Control_L
 keycode <keycodeofcapslock> = Caps_Lock
 add Lock = Caps_Lock
 add Control = Control_L

It is also possible to make the Caps_Lock a handy additional shourcut modifier, ie.:

 remove Lock = Caps_Lock
 keysym Caps_Lock = Meta_L