Comments on: Make my Gnome OSX'y

Question: Make my Gnome OSX'y

ChrisR — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:16:16 -0800

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.

By: oats

oats — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:25:43 -0800

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).

By: gadha

gadha — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 17:37:11 -0800

xmodmap is useful for changing arbitrary key mappings

By: ChrisR

ChrisR — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 22:51:16 -0800

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?

By: gbinal

gbinal — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:19:48 -0800

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.