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Zane Hitchcox
Asked: 2014-05-15 12:20:17 +0800 CST

How do I swap the CMD and ctrl key on a mac?

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I have been trying to switch the Ctrl and CMD key on my MacBook for a while, but nothing seems to work.

A lot of the answers say to go to System Settings > Keyboard Layout and change it there, but I have a brand new installation of Ubuntu, and it does not have that feature.

I've also tried adjusting the xmodmap, which works for the current session, but when I reboot, the settings aren't saved.

To try to save it, I have added the command xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap to my Startup Applications, but that didn't work. I have also tried adding the command to the file /etc/profile.d/myfile.sh (I also altered the permissions). I have tried the file ~/.xinitrc file and many other ways, but nothing seems to work.

However, when I go to my shell and type in xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap, it works. So, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

keyboard

2 Answers

  1. The gnome-tweak-tool provides an option "Left Alt is swapped with Left Win". You may install gnome-tweak-tool with sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool and the option can be found in the "Typing" menu.

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  2. To reload a configuration on login, first save it to the file: 

    xmodmap -pke > ~/.Xmodmap

    then edit the file created, such as:

    keycode 37 = Control_L NoSymbol Control_L
keycode  133 = Super_L NoSymbol Super_L

    or viceversa.

    You can run xev and press the buttons to verify their keycode.

    Finally, edit the file ~/.xsessionrc (or create it if it does not exist) with the following text, and change execution permission:

    chmod a+x ~/.xsessionrc

    Content of ~/.xsessionrc file:

    #/bin/sh 
# 
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here) 

# read ~/.Xmodmap if it exists
if [[ -f "${HOME}/.Xmodmap" ]]; then
    xmodmap "${HOME}/.Xmodmap"
fi
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