Make my Gnome OSX'y

October 21, 2006 2:16 PM

How do I configure Gnome (on Fedora Core 5, if it matters) and X11 to act like OSX with respect to keyboard input?

I've migrated my home PC to OSX, in a dramatic change of direction, and I love it. However, for consistency's sake I'd like to keep all of my computer interaction consistent, and it's unlikely that I'll be replacing my Linux desktop at work with a Mac any time soon (or ever).

So, how can I make it work in the same way? Ideally, what I want is the same keystrokes on my 104-key keyboard for both OSs for text navigation and (to the extent that it's possible) application shortcuts. The only caveat is, none of these changes may break Emacs :)

Even incremental improvements are welcome.

posted by ChrisR to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Dunno if this helps, but you may wish to open the Configuration Editor (Under Applications/System) and edit the /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme key to have the value 'Emacs'. This makes a lot of key bindings more emacs-ish--particularly C-a, C-e and C-k (although C-y doesn't work).
posted by oats at 2:25 PM on October 21, 2006

xmodmap is useful for changing arbitrary key mappings
posted by gadha at 5:37 PM on October 21, 2006

The tools are mostly known to me -- I'm more interested in the right way to go about such a pervasive alteration of the input handling for the GUI. Is there some kind of process I should follow, while using those tools, to accomplish my aim?
posted by ChrisR at 10:51 PM on October 21, 2006

I know that this is not what you are asking for, but it's pleasant and related if you are interested. Making Ubuntu look more like OS X.

Peace and good luck.
posted by gbinal at 8:19 PM on October 26, 2006