I don't know of any command line tool for that in Ubuntu. (For Num Lock, there is numlockx .) Here's a one-liner that you can copy-paste into a terminal window:
python -c 'from ctypes import *; X11 = cdll.LoadLibrary("libX11.so.6"); display = X11.XOpenDisplay(None); X11.XkbLockModifiers(display, c_uint(0x0100), c_uint(2), c_uint(0)); X11.XCloseDisplay(display)'
Here it is again in a more expanded form. We use the Python ctypes library to call C functions from the X library directly. The function XkbLockModifiers
changes the state of the keyboard locks, on the core keyboard (XkbUseCoreKbd
= 0x0100), affecting Caps Lock (2), setting it to 0 (off).
#!/usr/bin/env python
from ctypes import *
X11 = cdll.LoadLibrary("libX11.so.6")
display = X11.XOpenDisplay(None)
X11.XkbLockModifiers(display, c_uint(0x0100), c_uint(2), c_uint(0))
X11.XCloseDisplay(display)
If you have a stuck modifier, change 2 to the mask of the modifiers you want to turn off. The modifiers are 1=Shift, 2=Lock (Caps Lock), 4=Control, 8=Mod1, 16=Mod2, 32=Mod3, 64=Mod4, 128=Mod5. Run xmodmap -pm
to see what Mod1 through Mod5 correspond to. For example, to turn off all modifiers, call X11.XkbLockModifiers(display, c_uint(0x0100), c_uint(255), c_uint(0))
. To turn on Num Lock which is on Mod2 and at the same time turn off Caps Lock, call X11.XkbLockModifiers(display, c_uint(0x0100), c_uint(2 | 16), c_uint(16))
.
Here's a C version if you want to make a small binary instead of invoking Python. Compile with gcc -O -Wall -o caps_lock_off caps_lock_off.c -lX11
, with the packages build-essentials
and libx11-dev
installed.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <X11/X.h>
#include <X11/XKBlib.h>
int main()
{
Display *display = XOpenDisplay(NULL);
if (display == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't open display\n");
return 2;
}
Bool sent = XkbLockModifiers(display, XkbUseCoreKbd, LockMask, 0);
if (!sent) {
fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't send LatchLockState\n");
return 1;
}
#ifdef REPORT_STATE
XkbStateRec xkb_state;
Status status = XkbGetState(display, XkbUseCoreKbd, &xkb_state);
if (status) {
fprintf(stderr, "XkbGetState returned %d\n", status);
return 1;
}
printf("state.group=%02x\n", xkb_state.group);
printf("state.locked_group=%02x\n", xkb_state.locked_group);
printf("state.base_group=%02x\n", xkb_state.base_group);
printf("state.latched_group=%02x\n", xkb_state.latched_group);
printf("state.mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.mods);
printf("state.base_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.base_mods);
printf("state.latched_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.latched_mods);
printf("state.locked_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.locked_mods);
printf("state.compat_state=%02x\n", xkb_state.compat_state);
printf("state.grab_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.grab_mods);
printf("state.compat_grab_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.compat_grab_mods);
printf("state.lookup_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.lookup_mods);
printf("state.compat_lookup_mods=%02x\n", xkb_state.compat_lookup_mods);
printf("state.ptr_buttons=%02x\n", xkb_state.ptr_buttons);
#endif
int err = XCloseDisplay(display);
if (err) {
fprintf(stderr, "XCloseDisplay returned %d\n", err);
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
Also possibly of interest is a way to temporarily ignore Caps Lock:
xkbset nullify lock
After this, Caps Lock will effectively be permanently off, until you reenable it with xkbset nullify -lock
.
Best Answer
simply run:
From
man xset
:In the top section of the output, you will find your information, looking like:
You can use
grep
to get specific result as follows: