After computing almost exclusively in Linux with xmonad and things like xmodmap making it easy to do things like re-map my caps lock key into something actually useful1, shifting to a MacBook and OS X is kind of jarring. I’m collecting together a larger list of my recommendations, but I have two initially that made it actually possible for me to resist throwing the damn thing off the roof.

Both are found at pqrs.org. The first is the oddly named PCKeyboardHack and its sole purpose is to change the Caps Lock key, which is apparently more involved than your standard key remapping utility. Caps Lock as Escape is so ingrained in my muscle memory that without it I feel like I’ve lost the ability to type since I hit esc roughly a bajillion times a day in vim. This was vital.

Somewhat less vital, but still frustrating was my desire to make the bottom-left button on the keyboard be left control LIKE ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY because I almost never use the Fn key and that’s where control is meant to be. Since I was so pleased with PCKeyboardHack, I installed their additional utility KeyRemap4MacBook which adds a panel to your System Preferences and I mapped Fn to Control L. One important note, you need Fn to make the Function keys work (sigh) so make sure to choose an additional modifier to cause the Fn signal to be sent2.

  1. The Escape key, in my case. ↩

  2. Fn to Control_L (+ Option_L+Fn to Fn) is what I chose. ↩