Hi. I have a new Acer D150 running Ubuntu Jaunty. It's regular Ubuntu, not any "remix" or "netbook" edition. The machine is great, but I hate the keyboard. I've spent a lot of time trying to customize its layout, but I can't really make heads and tails of the configuration files. It seems that changing alphanumeric keys is very easy, but I rather need to change two special keys, and what with so many layouts and subsections being chained into each possible layout with an "include" command, I always get lost on that maze. I wonder if someone here can help me.

Here is a pretty good shot of the keyboard. I only want to change two keys so far: the first one right next to AltGr (I don't even know what to call it) should be Backspace, and the right-hand Control key should be Delete.

Can someone please give me clear instructions on how to achieve that?

Thank you for any help.

If you open a terminal and enter the command
setxkbmap -print
you'll get a list of the files used to compile your keyboard driver. I get

xkb_keymap {
xkb_keycodes { include "evdev+aliases(qwerty)" };
xkb_types { include "complete+caps(internal_nocancel)" };
xkb_compat { include "complete+ledscroll(group_lock)" };
xkb_symbols { include "pc+gb+inet(evdev)+altwin(meta_alt)+group(shift_caps_toggle)+level3(win_switch)+compose(menu)" };
xkb_geometry { include "pc(pc105)" };
};

You'll find these files in /usr/share/X11/xkb (ro perhaps /etc/X11/xkb) and you can do anything by altering them: keep copies of the originals inst in case of mistakes! To make the two changes you mention, alter .../symbols/pc, or just add the new lines to your national driver ("gb" in my case), as that overrides the others.

The "pc" file will include the lines

key <MENU> { [ Menu ] };
key <RCTL> { [ Control_R ] };

What you want, here or in your national file, is
key <MEMU> { [ BackSpace ] };
key <RCTL> { [ Delete ] };

Thanks, David! That is really nice.

However, <MENU> = BackSpace isn't working. That key still performs the original funcion. Only <RCTL> = Delete is working. Of course, I corrected your obvious typo: s/MEMU/MENU. Do you have any idea why it isn't working?

Oh, one more thing: <RCTL> deletes, but I can't hold it and delete lots of characters in a row like with the Delete key. I have to press it once for each character. Not a big deal, but I wish I could fix that too.

Two days and a reboot later, <MENU> = BackSpace is working too. Go figure. The only side effect still on is that Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work anymore. It doesn't matter whether I use the original Delete key (which I didn't change) or the new emulated Delete key. But I can live with that. Thank you again!

The reset command is actually Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, not Ctrl-Alt-Delete. In the …/symbols/pc file you should have

key <BKSP> {
type="CTRL+ALT",
symbols[Group1]= [ BackSpace, Terminate_Server ]
};

You could, if you preferred, have

key <MENU> {
type="CTRL+ALT",
symbols[Group1]= [ BackSpace, Terminate_Server ]
};

or even

key <RCTL> {
type="CTRL+ALT",
symbols[Group1]= [ Delete, Terminate_Server ]
};

In Linux, almost anything is possible

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace kills X (except on Ubuntu, where it's disabled), it's not the same as Ctrl-Alt-Del. In KDE, Ctrl-Alt-Del calls a Logout/Restart/Shutdown dialog, which I remapped to something else, so everything is OK.

I just discovered that I need the menu key for some Konqueror right-click command that I use a lot. Humm... Maybe I can map it to the old Delete key at the top of the layout. Notebooks have such lame layouts... :-\

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace kills X on ubuntu 8.04. Maybe it's a kubuntu thing. BTW, why did you switch from Slackware to kubuntu?

- Automatic dependency resolution. No more hunting endless dependencies (try installing mplayer on Slackware) or symlinking libraries to make stuff work. Except VMWare. Always VMWare...

- Bluetooth system that actually works (at least it did on Hardy).

- Integrated wifi drivers and application to choose an access point and connect. That was a major headache on Slackware. Plus, Slackware kept dropping my wifi connection all the time. No one ever gave me a solution to that problem. I see that it happens on Ubuntu too, but Ubuntu reconnects automatically. Something sucks in the wifi implementation in Linux and Ubuntu seems more aware of it.

Low-level system tweaking is a lot better on Slackware, but it turns out I rarely ever find myself tweaking anything on Ubuntu. Ubuntu works out of the box. I had fun exploring and tweaking Slackware, but I don't find that fun anymore. I want something that works right away.