Skip to main content

How to configure Ubuntu's keyboard to work like a Mac's

Typing accents on a PC is a complicated Alt + three numbered code affair. One feels like a sorcerer casting a spell. "I summon thee accented é! I press the weird magical key Alt, and with 0191 get the flipped question mark!" For a bilingual person this meant that writing on the computer was a start-and-stop process. With Mac's it a whole lot easier, just Alt + e and the letter you wanted for accents and alt + ? for the question mark. No need to leave the keyboard for the number pad and no need to remember arcane number combinations or have a paper cheat sheet next to the keyboard, as I've seen in virtually every secretaries computer in Puerto Rico.

Linux has a interesting approach to foreign language characters: using a compose key. You hit this key which I typically map to Caps Lock and ' and the letter you want and voilá you get the accent. Kinda makes sense: single quotation mark is an accent, double gets you the ümalaut, works pretty well. Except for the ñ, which requires keyboard acrobatics, a three finger keystroke of Caps Lock, Shift and back-tick making it just as arcane as the PC's alt codes. And the upside down question mark? Who knows? I wasn't able to find it. But there is a way to turn the Linux system into a copy of the Mac's and get the acute accent with compose key + e and the ~ with compose key + n. 

First go to Keyboard Layouts (not Keyboard) in System Settings. There hit the + button to add a new layout and look for English (Macintosh) from among the list. Then use the - key to remove the original English layout otherwise you'll have to switch between them and a small option to do that will pop up on your system tray. 













Then go to Options... and got to Key to choose 3rd level and select your desired key there, I use the Caps Lock but you can use the Alt key and really make it feel like a Mac keyboard. And you're done! The copyright symbol will be under the g just like on a Mac. 

If you like me switch between a Mac and Linux this will make it easier to keep typing in a natural flow. And not hunt for where the compose key puts the ¿. 

Comments

  1. Fantastic...! I am using an Apple Macbook Pro keyboard with Ubuntu 16.04 and it worked perfectly for me. Thanks for your help. Roberto

    ReplyDelete
  2. Erh.. I too am running an old MacBook, though 32-bit, and 16.04. However, something seems to have happened to the Keyboard Layout programme; I find no option key and no way to choose the 3rd level key, that I have been using until now for special characters. Or where am I going wrong? Where do I find the "option" option?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had the same issue. After reading a bit, I realized you need to set the "Alternative Characters Key" in the Keyboard settings menu, under the shortcuts tab, Typing section

      Delete
  3. I think its better and easier to configure dead keys in order to write accents

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Medieval Economics can teach us about tariffs.

As a teen, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with my friends. This started an interest in the medieval period that led to me taking a medieval history class in college just to understand the period more. Over the years I've also read great books like " Dungeon, Fire and Sword " about the crusades (I recommend the book) and yet with all that knowledge it wasn't until recently that it occurred to me I had a completely wrong understanding of economics in the Medieval Period. "Viking helmets, sword and footwear" by eltpics is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 In my D&D games, players who are adventures battling monsters and creatures would need equipment and on the trips to town, they'd get resupplied with their adventuring necessities. I'd run these moments referencing my imagination of what it must have been and fantasy books I'd read. There be an inn with a raucous bar, a gruffly black-smith, if a city also a weapon and armor sm...

Testing with Cucumber, Sinatra and Capybara

Everything you need to know There are many elements you need to simultaneously learn to do effective testing of your code. Because some of these elements are very simple a lot of explanations just jump over what you need to know and give them up as obvious. Let’s start with a list of the things you need to learn: Gherkin (the language of Cucumber) ——> super easy Capybara (the DSL that controls the browser tests) Rspec (the DSL in which the actual pass/fail tests are written.) None of these are hard. But having to learn all at the same time can seem daunting. But it’s not! It’s easy peasy but takes time. :-/ It took me three days to get a handle on this. And I hope by reading this you’ll get a handle on it much much quicker. Let’s start with Cucumber first. Cucumber Five things you need to know about Cucumber: Cucumber tests are located on a features folder that have plain text files with a .feature extension and written in Gherkin . The .feature files contain t...

Best Tech Books

Best Tech Books for Programming Language Learning I'm a bit of a polyglot no only in human languages (English, Spanish, Japanese) but also with programming languages. I found that the best way to get a deep understanding of the programming field, I needed to be broad. I got introduced to Bruce Tate's 7 languages in 7 weeks series right when I was starting to learn Ruby and found the cross-language trends to be very useful in knowing what to learn for the future.  So here is a list of Programming Books that I found good for learning a language. These are the must have books in my opinion to "get" or "grok" the language. Most of these books I have not finished but they're so good I can recommend them for other language learners and polyglots. All these books should accelerate your learning dramatically.  Poignant Guide to Ruby Ruby: POODR and _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby .  Okay, so _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby is the reason I fell in love with ...