Linux Vmware Workstation Keyboard Fubar (CTRL/ALT Modifiers not working)
For my work i need Altium Designer. My problem is that it only will run in Windows. For everything else i am more fine with Linux than with Windows. The solution would be some Virtualisation. I figured out that VMware fits best for me. But at my actual Arch setup it has some problems with the keyboard…
The problem
VMware with Windows 10 and Altium Designer is working very good. 3D performance is enough to work smooth with it. One problem i think is my different keyboard layout. I did not test it with another. My mainly used layout is Neo.
When the VM has the focus you can work normally with it. But when you switch back to Linux the CTRL/ALT/CAPS modifiers are not working anymore. Thats a problem while working in qutebrowser (CTRL-T/W…) as well in terminal (CTRL-C/D…).
Fix for me was restarting the X Server or rebooting linux.
This is not the best solution, so i started googling this problem. Its hard to find something for this problem. But i found: https://askubuntu.com/questions/493404/ubuntu-14-04-vmware-6-left-ctrl-and-right-shift-not-functioning
It exactly describes the problem and there is also an solution for this.
The solution
Not really shure why but it has something to do with Caps_Lock. So removing it from lock in the .Xmodmap solves the problem.
If you run xmodmap before an after VMware had the focus you will see that the mapping was cleared by vmware. Now we have VMware 15.5 and the problem was reported with version 6. Bad. But i can live with the workaround because it does not affect anything i have tested so far.
My .Xmodmap:
clear lock