[Left Alt]+Tab doesn't work or How to change a Level3 Shift to a normal ALT?

Question

I have a problem with my Ubuntu, running 14.04 LTS.

The problem is that I'm trying to user Alt+F4 and Alt+Tab and it doesn't work, it only works with the Right Alt.

I also tried to set a new keyboard short-cut for Alt+F4 and Alt+Tab but as soon as I press Alt the short-cut is set.

The thing I noticed once I set the shortcut is that the key didn't correspond with Alt, it was a Level3 Shift.

I search all over the internet of a method to change that Level3 Shift to the normal Alt but only found solution to do the opposite.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Try xev and xmodmap:

1. Run the command xev then hover your mouse over the black square.

2. Press the Alt key, and make a note of the following: My output was this (shortened): KeyPress event... keycode 64 (keysym 0xffe9, Alt_L), ... XFilterEvent returns: False

3. The important part is the keycode: Mine was 64, but yours is probably different.

4. Run the command xmodmap -e "keycode 64 = Alt_L" substituting 64 for whatever output you get (possibly 135 on your keyboard)

5. This should have changed it. If it has, you then need to run the following command: xmodmap -pke >~/.Xmodmap

6. Create a file called .xinitrc in your home folder (/home/username)

7. In that file paste the line xmodmap .Xmodmap. This should save it forever.

See this answer for details about remapping.

My pronouns are He / Him

Answer 2

Both of these solutions were a bit too hacky for my taste, so I dug a little deeper. The solution I found only uses dconf-editor.

Just open dconf-editor and search (ctrl+F) for xkb-options and update the value. In my case, the value associated with the xkb-options key was

['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp','lv3:alt_switch']

The option 'lv3:alt_switch' was the one that was causing my headache. I simply changed the value to:

['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp']

That's it!

Answer 3

Check current layout defaults

1. Check used layout/variant names, example my case:

   $ setxkbmap -query
   
   rules:      evdev
   model:      pc105
   layout:     us,us
   variant:    altgr-intl
   

2. Open the file in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ with same name of layout.

   sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us
   

3. Scroll down to the exact variant

   xkb_symbols "altgr-intl" {
   
    name[Group1]= "English (international AltGr dead keys)";
   
   ...
   
   include "level3(ralt_switch)"
   };
   

4. See if you have include "level3(ralt_switch)" (or maybe include "level3(lalt_switch)", not sure if that's possible), if so remove its line.

5. Run to update layout

   sudo dpkg-reconfigure xkb-data