xmodmap - remap Caps_Lock to Escape and Shift+Caps_Lock to Caps_Lock

Question

I'm experiencing a strange behavior with xmodmap. I want to remap Caps_Lock so it acts as Escape and Shift+Caps_Lock so it acts as Caps_Lock. In my ~/.Xmodmap i tried every possible combination of the following commands always with the same result:

clear Lock
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keycode 66 =
keycode 66 = Escape Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Escape Caps_Lock

The Caps_Lock gets properly remapped to Escape

$ xmodmap -pke | grep Caps
keycode  66 = Escape Caps_Lock Escape Caps_Lock

BUT after reboot it still does lock CAPS. So it acts as both Escape and Caps_Lock. Running xev i can see that the state switches between 0x10 and 0x12. While Shift+Caps_Lock works as expected (as Caps_Lock). If i run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap in my terminal after logging in i get this as before:

$ xmodmap -pke | grep Caps
keycode  66 = Escape Caps_Lock Escape Caps_Lock

BUT Caps_Lock starts behaving as expected, only as Escape and does no longer lock CAPS.

I really dont get what am i doing wrong.

Answer 1

Finally found a way to make this work. I figured out that X keyboard extension yet offers an option for this. By looking at /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst i found the following line:

caps:escape_shifted_capslock Make unmodified Caps Lock an additional Esc, but Shift + Caps Lock behaves like regular Caps Lock

So i simply needed to add caps:escape_shifted_capslock to XkbOptions inside /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf this way:

Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp,caps:escape_shifted_capslock"

After reboot Caps_Lock and Shift+Caps_Lock were behaving exactly the way i wanted.

Answer 2

I followed the example from the xmodmap wiki for 'CapsLock to Control and Shift+CapsLock to CapsLock' and it worked.

clear lock
keycode 66 = Escape Caps_Lock NoSymbol NoSymbol

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