Trying to remap the "Search" key to Escape on a Pixelbook Go

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1

Setup:

  • Pixelbook Go (2019)
  • Arch Linux (minimal archinstall script )
  • Hyprland (no DE), Kitty terminal
  • cros-keyboard-map installed
  • Top row keys (brightness, volume, etc.) work fine

Tools tested:

  • wev: Search key = Super_L (133), Escape = Escape (9)
  • keyd: Search = leftmeta, Escape = esc
  • xremap was able to remap that key but is currently disabled while I test with keyd

Issue:
Can’t get the Search key (left of a ) to behave like Escape. Not sure if it’s an Arch misconfig somewhere, Hyprland intercepting it, or something else. I’ve spent hours trying to figure this out and I’m stuck.

Any ideas? Would really appreciate some help. :sweat_smile:

2

Have a look at cros-keyboard-map/configs/61-pixel-keyboard.hwdb at main · WeirdTreeThing/cros-keyboard-map · GitHub

3

Thank you. I’ll test this out and report back!

4

So this is what I learned:

I had two cros.conf files—one in my home directory and one in /etc/keyd/. I mistakenly kept editing the one in my home folder, but only the config in /etc/keyd/ actually matters.

More importantly, I was putting leftmeta=esc in the wrong section of the file. Turns out it must go inside the [main] block—placing it anywhere else (top, bottom, or under [meta]) doesn’t work. Placement is strict, and now I know to pay closer attention to section headers in future configs.

Here’s the working snippet:

[main]
leftmeta=esc
f1 = back
f2 = refresh
f3 = f11
f4 = scale
f5 = brightnessdown
f6 = brightnessup
f7 = playpause
f8 = mute
f9 = volumedown
f10 = volumeup
f13 = f13