Smart Caps Lock remapping doesn't take effect when .xprofile is sourced

[josh5555s]

I'm on Regolith 2.1 Linux. I can run ~/.xprofile and it works, but it doesn't run on startup.

.xprofile permissions are -rwxrwxrwx

File contents are:
#make CapsLock behave like Ctrl:
setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps
#make short-pressed Ctrl behave like Escape:
xcape -e 'Control_L=Escape'

I'd love for smart caps lock to be enabled automatically. Thanks for any help.

[kgilmer]

Hi @josh5555s , did you get Regolith via packages or did you install the ISO? It seems that the display manager should be sourcing .xprofile according to these docs and I did verify that gdm3 does in fact seem to test and source the file.

[josh5555s]

The ISO. You are right, when I add touch ~/testing.txt that does work, so it is the setxkbmap/xcape commands that aren't working when .xprofile is sourced originally. But then they do work when it is sourced again manually.

[josh5555s]

The issue remains, although my original understanding of the cause was wrong. The Smart Caps Lock commands, taken from here, have always worked for me in other ubuntu distros. There is something about the way that Regolith starts up that is getting in the way. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[josh5555s]

I finally found a solution here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/66624/where-is-xkb-getting-its-configuration/66657

The issue is that gnome overwrites the xkb configs, and so I had to use gsettings to directly update xkb-options.

Lastly, I still needed xcape -e 'Control_L=Escape' to run, but for whatever reason it doesn't run from .xprofile. However, I found that putting it in a bash script, then calling the bash script from .xprofile does work. I don't know why that's necessary, but it works!

I hope this helps anyone else who wants to use Smart Caps Lock.