These commands (setxkbmap and xcape) are in .profile but are not being executed on login

Rosa

6/4/24, 9:00 AM

I have verified that .profile is executed on login.

However, commands involving setxkbap (e.g. setxkbmap -option ctrl:swapcaps) and xcape (e.g. xcape -e 'Control_L=Escape') seem to be ignored.

Since both programs are for keyboard bindings I figured the reasons they are ignored is related. How can I get them to run on login?

Using Ubuntu 22.04 on Xorg (xcape doesn't work on Wayland).

116

1 + 5

xorg

shortcut-keys

.profile

xkb

22.04

Gunnar Hjalmarsson

6/4/24, 11:54 AM

Probably better to use Tweaks (you may need to install `gnome-tweaks`) to change the keyboard behavior in this respect.

Rosa

6/4/24, 3:33 PM

@GunnarHjalmarsson Unfortunately it is impossible to replicate the behaviour of xcape with gnome-tweaks.

Gunnar Hjalmarsson

6/4/24, 4:00 PM

Maybe that particular combo is not so easy... Another thought is to put those commands in a shell script and [autostart](https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/startup-applications.html) that script at login.

Rosa

6/4/24, 4:31 PM

@GunnarHjalmarsson I managed to do it by using startup applications, but I had to run them as a script with a delay of a few seconds (`sleep 10`). If you want to put this in an answer I will mark it as solved to help others. Thanks.

Gunnar Hjalmarsson

6/4/24, 4:41 PM

Great! Please feel free to use it in an own answer. It's perfectly fine to answer your own question. ;)

Score:2

Ubuntu

Rosa

6/4/24, 5:14 PM

This can done with Startup Applications.

Put your commands in a file with a delay command at the top (this is because keyboard bindings need the desktop environment to be loaded before they can be executed):

sleep 10;
setxkbmap ...;
xcape ...;

Save this as keybinds.sh then in Startup Applications click Add and in the popup dialogue, add this in the Command field (just change the location of keybinds script).

/bin/bash -c "sh /home/user/.../keybinds.sh"

When you login, after 10 seconds the script will run.

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EN: These commands (setxkbmap and xcape) are in .profile but are not being executed on login

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