[Shell] Bash gurus?

[Maqz447]

Hi all. I posted this half a day ago in the genereal help forum but that may not be the right place, though this may not be either...

It's not a big problem, more of an annoyance. I created a file ~/.xmodmap that swaps my caps lock and ctrl keys. This is convenient when using Emacs of course. I added the line "xmodmap ~/.xmodmap" to my .bashrc. This works as expected. The problem is, any time I open a shell (terminal instance or in emacs) .bashrc is of course read again and swap them back! So I have to type "xmodmap ~/.xmodmap" manually every time I open a shell instance. Does anyone know of a clever trick to avoid this?

[jimi_hendrix]

try making a variable and asigning it to 0...then do an if statement that will swap them only if the variable = 0 then after this make the variable = to 1

[stylishpants]

Instead of executing ~/.xmodmap from ~/.bashrc, do it from an init file that only gets called at login time, not at shell creation time. You could try ~/.bash_profile or /etc/profile.

More info:

man bash | less -p '^FILES'

[unutbu]

Maqz447, if you are the only one using the machine, or if all users are happy swapping capslock and ctrl, then you can set this behavior on a system-wide level by editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf:


gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Search for the word "XkbLayout"
Add a line in this Section:


Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"

or if you wish to make both the ctrl and the capslock keys behave as ctrl keys, add this instead:


Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"

Or, if you wish to swap those keys just for a single user, you could go to System>Preferences>Sessions (assuming you use GNOME) and add the "xmodmap ~/.xmodmap" command there.

[Maqz447]

Great suggestions, all! I made a .bash_profile and the problem is gone.