In article <20hsn6$n1n@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU> newman@TC.Cornell.EDU (Bill Newman) writes:
quoted text
>I hate the down-at-the-lower-left location of the Ctrl key on modern IBM
>keyboards, enough so that I end up using vi-oid editors instead of emacs
>unless I can exchange Ctrl and CapsLock.  
...
quoted text
>Is it possible to make this switch on a Linux virtual console?

I received replies from 
        quale@spock.cs.wisc.edu
        tpm@netcom.com
        bde@halcyon.halcyon.com
I will quote the reply from quale@spock.cs.wisc.edu; I followed the 
instructions there for 0.99pl9 and they worked nicely, although I
hadn't anticipated waiting an hour or so for my machine (25 MHz 386
with 4 Mb RAM) to recompile the source.

====== (Message from quale follows.) =================================

You don't mention what kernel you are running, but in kernels before
0.99pl10 you go into kernel/chr_drv/keyboard.c and rotate the the
caps, ctrl and alt entries in a table near the end of the file (and
similarly for uncaps, unctrl and unalt).

The 0.99pl10 kernel introduces loadable keymaps, so get the package
keytables.tar.z and use the following keymap file:

! The format of the keymap file resembles the one accepted by xmodmap.
!
! Comments are introduced with ! or # characters and continue to the end
! of the line. Comments need not begin from column one as with xmodmap.
!
! Each key definition line is of the form
!    'keycode' <keynumber> '=' <keysym> <keysym> <keysym>
!
! <keynumber> is the internal number of the key, i.e. the scan code of the
! key. <keynumber> can be given in decimal, octal or hexadecimal notation.
! Octal is denoted by a leading zero and hexadecimal by the prefix 0x.
!
! Each of the <keysym>'s represent Latin1 character codes, character
! sequences or other actions produced by the key when pressed with
! various modifier keys. The first <keysym> is produced, when the key is
! pressed without modifier keys, the second when the key is pressed with
! either of the shift keys and the third <keysym> when AltGr is held down
! while the key is pressed. <keysym>'s can be given in decimal, octal,
! hexadecimal or symbolic notation. The numeric notations use the same
! format as <keynumber>'s. The symbolic notation resembles that used by
! xmodmap. Notable differencies are the number symbols. The numeric
! symbols '0', ..., '9' of X are replaced with the corresponding words
! 'zero', 'one', ... 'nine' to avoid confusion with the numeric notation.
!
keycode   0 =
keycode   1 = Escape           Escape
keycode   2 = one              exclam
keycode   3 = two              at               at
keycode   4 = three            numbersign
keycode   5 = four             dollar           dollar
keycode   6 = five             percent
keycode   7 = six              asciicircum
keycode   8 = seven            ampersand        braceleft
keycode   9 = eight            asterisk         bracketleft
keycode  10 = nine             parenleft        bracketright
keycode  11 = zero             parenright       braceright
keycode  12 = minus            underscore       backslash
keycode  13 = equal            plus
keycode  14 = Delete           Delete
keycode  15 = Tab              Tab
keycode  16 = q                Q
keycode  17 = w                W
keycode  18 = e                E
keycode  19 = r                R
keycode  20 = t                T
keycode  21 = y                Y
keycode  22 = u                U
keycode  23 = i                I
keycode  24 = o                O
keycode  25 = p                P
keycode  26 = bracketleft      braceleft
keycode  27 = bracketright     braceright       asciitilde
keycode  28 = Return           Return           Return
keycode  29 = Alt              Alt              Alt
keycode  30 = a                A
keycode  31 = s                S
keycode  32 = d                D
keycode  33 = f                F
keycode  34 = g                G
keycode  35 = h                H
keycode  36 = j                J
keycode  37 = k                K
keycode  38 = l                L
keycode  39 = semicolon        colon
keycode  40 = apostrophe       quotedbl
keycode  41 = grave            asciitilde
keycode  42 = Shift_L          Shift_L          Shift_L
keycode  43 = backslash        bar
keycode  44 = z                Z
keycode  45 = x                X
keycode  46 = c                C
keycode  47 = v                V
keycode  48 = b                B
keycode  49 = n                N
keycode  50 = m                M
keycode  51 = comma            less
keycode  52 = period           greater
keycode  53 = slash            question
keycode  54 = Shift_R          Shift_R          Shift_R
keycode  55 = KP_Multiply      KP_Multiply      KP_Multiply
keycode  56 = Caps_Lock        Caps_Lock        Caps_Lock
keycode  57 = space            space            space
keycode  58 = Control_L        Control_L        Control_L
keycode  59 = F1               F11              Console_13
keycode  60 = F2               F12              Console_14
keycode  61 = F3               F13              Console_15
keycode  62 = F4               F14              Console_16
keycode  63 = F5               F15              Console_17
keycode  64 = F6               F16              Console_18
keycode  65 = F7               F17              Console_19
keycode  66 = F8               F18              Console_20
keycode  67 = F9               F19              Console_21
keycode  68 = F10              F20              Console_22
keycode  69 = Num_Lock         Num_Lock         Num_Lock
keycode  70 = Scroll_Lock      Show_Memory      Show_Registers
keycode  71 = KP_7             KP_7             KP_7
keycode  72 = KP_8             KP_8             KP_8
keycode  73 = KP_9             KP_9             KP_9
keycode  74 = KP_Subtract      KP_Subtract      KP_Subtract
keycode  75 = KP_4             KP_4             KP_4
keycode  76 = KP_5             KP_5             KP_5
keycode  77 = KP_6             KP_6             KP_6
keycode  78 = KP_Add           KP_Add           KP_Add
keycode  79 = KP_1             KP_1             KP_1
keycode  80 = KP_2             KP_2             KP_2
keycode  81 = KP_3             KP_3             KP_3
keycode  82 = KP_0             KP_0             KP_0
keycode  83 = KP_Period        KP_Period        KP_Period
keycode  84 = Last_Console     Last_Console     Last_Console
keycode  85 =
keycode  86 = less             greater          bar
keycode  87 = F11              F11              Console_23
keycode  88 = F12              F12              Console_24
keycode  89 =
keycode  90 =
keycode  91 =
keycode  92 =
keycode  93 =
keycode  94 =
keycode  95 =
keycode  96 = KP_Enter         KP_Enter         KP_Enter
keycode  97 = Control_R        Control_R        Control_R
keycode  98 = KP_Divide        KP_Divide        KP_Divide
keycode  99 = 0x001c
keycode 100 = AltGr            AltGr            AltGr
keycode 101 = Break            Break            Break
keycode 102 = Find             Find             Find
keycode 103 = Up               Up               Up
keycode 104 = Prior            Prior            Prior
keycode 105 = Left             Left             Left
keycode 106 = Right            Right            Right
keycode 107 = Select           Select           Select
keycode 108 = Down             Down             Down
keycode 109 = Next             Next             Next
keycode 110 = Insert           Insert           Insert
keycode 111 = Remove           Remove           Remove