When we are using vi (or alternatives such as vim, nvim, helix editor), we frequently hope to Swap the CapsLock and Ctrl keys in a regular keyboard, just like what HHKB's layout. This is actually possible with a few command line strikes to make it work for the current login, or a few configurations to make it take effect forever.
For current login
setxkbmap -option "ctrl:nocaps"
This setting means that Swap Ctrl and Caps Lock.
Then everything will work as expected. If you'd like to inspect current options, simply type:
setxkbmap -query
which outputs something like:
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: us
options: ctrl:swapcaps
For more details, see man xkeyboard-config.
For all later logins
If we would like to make the swap work permanently, one quick solution it to execute setxkbmap -option "ctrl:nocaps" in the profile file. Yes, ~/.profile will be a direct way to put the command for the current user, if you are using Bash as the login shell; for sure, /etc/profile will affect all the users with Bash as the login shell.
Another possibility is to use the same option in the file /etc/default/keyboard, which might end up looking like this:
# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE
# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
# XKBOPTIONS=""
XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"
BACKSPACE="guess"
Apparantly, the settings in this file affects all the users. If we would like to only affect the current user, simply use ~/.keyboard to overwrite the settings. Note that directly modifying the variables in the configuration files might require restarting or re-login or reconfigure to take effect.
