Re: Re: losing xmodmap settings during X startup

[Joey Morris <rjmorris@nc.rr.com>]

Pall Gone <pallgone@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 05:38:14AM +0100:
> Hi Joey
> 
> I'm experiencing exactly the same problem.
> 
> > Now here is where it gets strange. Testing a workaround...
> Ha, pressing a key and it works. Funny...
> I've tried to delay it before, but in the background, where this doesn't work :)
> 
> This seems to be a general Linux related problem as I am having the
> same thing on Archlinux
> 
> See here for some details:
> http://madduck.net/docs/extending-xkb/
> 
> Cheers,
> Pall

Thanks for that Pall. I removed the xmodmap stuff from my .xinitrc and
replaced it with:

  setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps
  
Now, after I start X, my Caps Lock key acts as a second Control, and
the output of xmodmap -pm looks correct. Since the only configuration
I needed is a built-in option, I didn't have to set up any rules
files, but that information is good to know in case I want to do
something more complicated in the future.

I still don't know why configuring this with xmodmap works when using
xdm but not when using startx. Adding ctrl:nocaps to XKBOPTIONS in
/etc/default/keyboard also doesn't work, and I don't know why that's
happening, either. But at least the main issue is now cleared up.