Once you start changing your keyboard layout, you start realising there’s all sorts of nice improvements you can make. In X11, this used to be possible with xmodmap, but that’s not the recommended method anymore. Here’s a few quick notes on how to use the current method, setxkbmap, and where to find further resources.

Usually I’m happily clacking away on a 60% mechanical keyboard, but when my partner is on work calls I switch to a quieter Dell. Unlike the mech, it doesn’t allow for keymaps to be set at the firmware level, so I use XKB to make modifications. It has a UK ISO layout so I use the following command:

setxkbmap -model pc102 -layout gb,jp -option grp:rshift_toggle,ctrl:nocaps,altwin:swap_lalt_lwin,lv3:ralt_switch

Let’s break this down:

• setxkbmap allows runtime configuration of XKB.
• -model sets the physical layout.
• -layout sets the keymap (to a specific country/language)
• -option allows for additional customizations.
• multiple arguments to the same parameter are delimited by a comma.

Some legend posted a full list of all setxkbmap configurations, which lists out all the possible options to each of these arguments.

Model

For model, chances are that you’re rocking a generic physical layout like one of the following:

Also:

• If you bought your device in Europe, chances are that yours is the 102/105 ISO layout.
• If you bought your device in the US/Canada, chances are that you have 101/104 ANSI.
• If by some chance you have a Japanese computer, you probably have the JIS layout. Lots of extra keys!

Layout

This will likely correspond to the language of the country where you bought your device. Note that the UK layout is under gb, and differs from the us layout in the placement of a few punctuation symbols such as @, ", #, ~ and |.

Also note that if you prefer a specific variant of a layout (e.g. Mac, Dvorak, etc.), then you can set this using the -variant parameter.

Option(s)

I love little tweaks like these. Here’s the ones I have:

• grp:rshift_toggle: I use the right shift key to switch between UK and JP layouts.
• ctrl:nocaps: I don’t use the caps lock, so I map the left control key to it instead. Trust me, once you make this change you won’t go back.
• altwin:swap_lalt_lwin: Because I used i3, I use the super key (win) a lot, so it made sense to put it adjacent to the spacebar.
• lv3:ralt_switch: I think it makes sense to use the right alt key to access special characters such as € (although in VIM I usually stick to digraphs).

Anyways, that’s all for now!