DEL under Linux

DEL under Linux

Some people have noticed that the DEL key on a Linux windowing system does not behave like it did on a Sun. On a Sun, both DEL and BACKSPACE would delete the character to the left of the cursor. That is, they would delete backwards. On a Linux box, BACKSPACE now deletes backwards, while DEL deletes forwards.

It is possible to change this behavior using xmodmap. The specific command on our Linux boxes is

    xmodmap -e "keycode 107 = BackSpace"
You should conditionalize this to run only under Linux, as the keycodes on a Sun are different and the same command will result in strange behavior.
This page last updated May 20, 2004.