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From: Joey Morris on 31 Jan 2010 11:50
I start my X session with startx, and lately I've noticed that some
(but not all) of my .Xmodmap settings are being lost once my X session
is up. I think this behavior started sometime in the past month or two.

I'm using xmodmap to make Caps_Lock key a second Control_L. These are
the contents of my .Xmodmap:

clear Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Control = Control_L

I'm calling xmodmap in my .xinitrc like this:

USRMODMAP=$HOME/.Xmodmap
if [ -f "$USRMODMAP" ]; then
/usr/bin/xmodmap $USRMODMAP
fi

Once my X session is up, Caps_Lock is recognized as a second Control_L
(as expected), but it's assigned to the lock modifier instead of the
control modifier. I've edited my .xinitrc to print the modifier map at
various points to demonstrate what's going on:

Before applying .Xmodmap:
lock Caps_Lock (0x42)
control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69)

After applying .Xmodmap (and immediately before executing the window
manager):
lock
control Control_L (0x25), Control_L (0x42), Control_R (0x69)

This is exactly how I want it to look. However, once the window
manager is up and I print the modifier map again, I get this:
lock Control_L (0x42)
control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69)

What could be moving Control_L (0x42) from control to lock? How can I
prevent it? I'm using the blackbox window manager, but I've also tried
other window managers (awesome, openbox, twm) and saw the same
behavior. I've tried moving .xinitrc to .xsession, and that didn't
help. Using xdm instead of startx does fix the problem, however. This
is on Debian unstable.

In researching this problem, I've seen a few comments that xmodmap is
deprecated. If this is true, what is the replacement? I'd like the
option to apply these settings on a per-user basis.

Thanks for any help you can provide.


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From: Anthony Campbell on 1 Feb 2010 04:20
On 31 Jan 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> I start my X session with startx, and lately I've noticed that some
> (but not all) of my .Xmodmap settings are being lost once my X session
> is up. I think this behavior started sometime in the past month or two.
>
[snip]

I also use startx, with Icewm. I encountered problems with ~/.Xmodmap
some time ago. I solved it by trying out various /usr/bin/xmodmap
commands on the command line and when I got them working I put them in
..xinitrc. I no longer use ~/.Xmodmap.

I hadn't heard that xmodmap was deprecated. I certainly hope there will
be a satisfactory substitute if that is the case.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell - ac(a)acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell


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From: Joey Morris on 1 Feb 2010 22:30
Anthony Campbell <ac(a)acampbell.org.uk> wrote on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 09:13:41AM +0000:
> On 31 Jan 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> > I start my X session with startx, and lately I've noticed that some
> > (but not all) of my .Xmodmap settings are being lost once my X session
> > is up. I think this behavior started sometime in the past month or two.
> >
> [snip]
>
> I also use startx, with Icewm. I encountered problems with ~/.Xmodmap
> some time ago. I solved it by trying out various /usr/bin/xmodmap
> commands on the command line and when I got them working I put them in
> .xinitrc. I no longer use ~/.Xmodmap.

Thanks. I tried removing the line that loads .Xmodmap from my .xinitrc
and replacing it with direct calls to xmodmap -e, but that didn't
help. Just like my method of loading .Xmodmap, the modifier map is
correct immediately after the calls to xmodmap -e, but once the window
manager is up and I have an xterm, the modifier map is wrong. It looks
like the keysym command survives, but something moves that second
Control_L back to the Lock modifer.


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From: Anthony Campbell on 2 Feb 2010 03:40
On 01 Feb 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> Anthony Campbell <ac(a)acampbell.org.uk> wrote on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 09:13:41AM +0000:
> > On 31 Jan 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> > > I start my X session with startx, and lately I've noticed that some
> > > (but not all) of my .Xmodmap settings are being lost once my X session
> > > is up. I think this behavior started sometime in the past month or two.
> > >
> > [snip]
> >
> > I also use startx, with Icewm. I encountered problems with ~/.Xmodmap
> > some time ago. I solved it by trying out various /usr/bin/xmodmap
> > commands on the command line and when I got them working I put them in
> > .xinitrc. I no longer use ~/.Xmodmap.
>
> Thanks. I tried removing the line that loads .Xmodmap from my .xinitrc
> and replacing it with direct calls to xmodmap -e, but that didn't
> help. Just like my method of loading .Xmodmap, the modifier map is
> correct immediately after the calls to xmodmap -e, but once the window
> manager is up and I have an xterm, the modifier map is wrong. It looks
> like the keysym command survives, but something moves that second
> Control_L back to the Lock modifer.
>

Did you try running the xmodmap -e e stuff at the command line in an
xterm? That might give you a clearer idea of what is wrong.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell - ac(a)acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell


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From: Joey Morris on 2 Feb 2010 12:20
Anthony Campbell <ac(a)acampbell.org.uk> wrote on Tue, Feb 02, 2010 at 08:35:29AM +0000:
> On 01 Feb 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> > Anthony Campbell <ac(a)acampbell.org.uk> wrote on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 09:13:41AM +0000:
> > > On 31 Jan 2010, Joey Morris wrote:
> > > > I start my X session with startx, and lately I've noticed that some
> > > > (but not all) of my .Xmodmap settings are being lost once my X session
> > > > is up. I think this behavior started sometime in the past month or two.
> > > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > I also use startx, with Icewm. I encountered problems with ~/.Xmodmap
> > > some time ago. I solved it by trying out various /usr/bin/xmodmap
> > > commands on the command line and when I got them working I put them in
> > > .xinitrc. I no longer use ~/.Xmodmap.
> >
> > Thanks. I tried removing the line that loads .Xmodmap from my .xinitrc
> > and replacing it with direct calls to xmodmap -e, but that didn't
> > help. Just like my method of loading .Xmodmap, the modifier map is
> > correct immediately after the calls to xmodmap -e, but once the window
> > manager is up and I have an xterm, the modifier map is wrong. It looks
> > like the keysym command survives, but something moves that second
> > Control_L back to the Lock modifer.
> >
>
> Did you try running the xmodmap -e e stuff at the command line in an
> xterm? That might give you a clearer idea of what is wrong.

Yes, I've done that. In fact, since this problem started, the first
thing I do after restarting X is to run the following in an xterm to
get the modifiers set up the way I want them:

$ xmodmap -e "clear Lock"
$ xmodmap -e "add Control = Control_L"

I get no errors or warnings, and everything works fine afterwards. I
skip the "keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L" step because it isn't
necessary (it's the one part of my .Xmodmap that sticks around), but I
did verify that it worked during my original troubleshooting.


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