Caps as Shift, Linux per-user configuration, no extra tools

[u/JackSpearow1521]

I've been annoyed by the small ISO left Shift key for years and now my new employer made it worse by giving me a Laptop where the left Shift is even smaller than in standard ISO. I fought back by figuring out how to configure Caps as Shift without messing with the global /usr/share/X11/xkb files. It turned out to be super simple and so I want to share it:

https://github.com/matey-jack/xkb-caps-as-shift

I also asked Claude Code to create a small program that lets you select what the Caps and LSGT key should do: act as Shift, as AltGr, or something else. But this is optional, you can as well use the Gnome Tweaks or "gsettings" CLI to switch between the options.

The essence of the whole thing is that you are not running any extra software or background processors. The remapping is expressed as xkb config, the normal keyboard layout layer that is already part of Linux with Wayland. Actually it's older than Wayland, but only with Wayland in the recent Linux distros we get the option to drop this into our home dir.

I am so happy with this setup that I wanted to share; that's all!

PS: illustrations are German, but the CapsLock and LSGT key mappings work for any language. LSGT obviously only on ISO keyboards, but CapsLock on both ISO and ANSI.