Remapping Insert to Delete key on Ubuntu 20.04

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Tommy Ku

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This post is more than 2 years old, it may contain outdated information

Delete key has lot a keycap, replaced by tape — Filmsy keycap of Lenovo ThinkPad’s Delete key has broken

I tried a few out-dated methods using xmodmap and getting ~/.xinitrc to run on startup but even if .xinitrc is executed, the key is still not mapped.

At the end I stumbled upon this answer when I was about to give up, and it worked.

I needed to change /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc with as root to modify the behavior of Insert key to Delete. Saved the file, reboot and it worked like a charm.

-    key  <INS> {	[  Insert		]	};
+    key  <INS> {	[  Delete		]	};

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This post first appeared on Tommy Ku's blog. Permalink: https://blog.tommyku.com/blog/remapping-insert-to-delete-key-on-ubuntu-20-04/

About the author

Tommy Ku, a Hong Kong-based Software Engineer experienced developing PHP and Java-based web solutions and passionate in Web technology.

Also a hobbyist digital and film photographer.