How to find the same comfort of Mac keyboard and save myself from pinkie finger stress disease?

Question

I'm so used to the comfortable layout of Apple keyboards and I like to use the command key for the most often used combination shortcuts (command-C for copy, command-V for paste and so on), which is very easily accessed with my left thumb. When I switched to other computers (running Linux specifically) I found it very uncomfortable to use the control key instead of command for the same combos, which instead requires the use of the pinkie finger. I just wonder what other Linux converted solutions are, rather then assign different keys function through the Desktop Environment configuration tools.

Answer 1

I would suggest that you try two things:

1. Use an Apple keyboard with your Linux box.
2. Configure your keyboard so that Ctrl is mapped to Command and vice-versa.

To accomplish #2 you need to change the keyboard mapping. There is an article that describes this process here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/131900/how-do-i-switch-the-command-key-and-control-key-on-a-macbook-pro

Even though the article is aimed at Ubuntu users, the tool it describes is the same in all Linux distros. This only needs to be done on the computer to which the physical keyboard is connected.

Answer 2

Which distribution of Linux are you using ? Or which OS ? I know ubuntu can handle a lot of keyboard language preferences. You may try to use an Apple keyboard and set your preferences to qwerty English Mac OS X.

Switching your ctrl to cmd button might be an alternative but I found it dirty.

Answer 3

Update 02/03/2020

Kinto has now been rewritten in C for Ubuntu/Debian systems using x11. It also uses json config files, making it easier to manage and extend to other applications than just terminals. The app no longer maps to Super in the Terminal apps, it will now properly map to Ctrl+Shift to create the exact same feel as having a Cmd key.

Please checkout the latest release. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto

The main change to allow for the Super = Ctrl+Shift change is in this symbols file.

default partial xkb_symbols "mac_levelssym" {
    key <LWIN> {
      repeat= no,
      type= "ONE_LEVEL",
      symbols[Group1]= [ Hyper_L ],
      actions[group1]=[ SetMods(modifiers=Shift+Control) ]
    };
    key <RWIN> {
      repeat= no,
      type= "ONE_LEVEL",
      symbols[Group1]= [ Hyper_R ],
      actions[group1]=[ SetMods(modifiers=Shift+Control) ]
    };
};

---

You may find Kinto to be useful. It's a project I recently created, after a few years of tackling this problem a few different ways and I just now feel like it's solid enough to share.

The Kinto installer simply uses python to do the initial install, after that it's just a systemd service, bash, xprop, setxkbmap and xkbcomp. As far as I am concerned it is the fastest and most native solution to this problem that you are going to find.

https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto

https://medium.com/@benreaves/kinto-a-mac-inspired-keyboard-mapping-for-linux-58f731817c0

Here's a Gist as well, if you just want to see what is at the heart of it all, it will not alternate your keymap when needed though. The Gist also does not include custom xkb keymap files that setup macOS style cursors/word-wise manipulations that use Cmd and the arrow keys.

https://gist.github.com/rbreaves/f4cf8a991eaeea893999964f5e83eebb

gist content

# permanent apple keyboard keyswap
echo "options hid_apple swap_opt_cmd=1" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf
update-initramfs -u -k all

# Temporary & instant apple keyboard keyswap
echo '1' | sudo tee -a /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters/swap_opt_cmd

# Windows and Mac keyboards - GUI (Physical Alt is Ctrl, Physical Super is Alt, Physical Ctrl is Super)
setxkbmap -option;setxkbmap -option altwin:ctrl_alt_win

# Windows and Mac keyboards - Terminal Apps (Physical Alt is Super, Physical Super is Alt, Physical Ctrl is Ctrl)
setxkbmap -option;setxkbmap -option altwin:swap_alt_win

#
# If you want a systemd service and bash script to help toggle between
# GUI and Terminal applications then look at project Kinto.
# https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto
#
# Note: The above may not work for Chromebooks running Linux, please look
# at project Kinto for that.
#
# If anyone would like to contribute to the project then please do!
#