Hi guys,

I finally got a new keyboard after muddling along with my supernice one that was rapidly dying. Many errors, repeating keys, skips; cable had to be exactly the right angle; lights went out, etc. It needs rewiring. A soldering iron is on its way, whenever the lender can drop it off here, which clearly will not be today.

Meanwhile the new one is almost okay, even if it is plastic. This is a Perixx PERIBOARD-502 PLUS, Wired USB Keyboard with Touchpad.

BUT -- it has one serious fault. On this keyboard, the outboard key on the lower left side is FN but it needs to be CTRL. The CTRL key is in the wrong place. I use this key hundreds of times/day.

So I need to remap this key to be the CTRL key.

I can run xev to get the keymap codes, for all keys but this FN key. Apparently the FN key won't give any output by itself, at least not using this method.

Without the code, I can't xmodmap this key.

I need output like this:

KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x4600001,
    root 0x111, subw 0x0, time 1003909681, (508,-351), root:(512,327),
    state 0x4, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

-- where the part in parentheses after keysym contains the code I need.

The manufacturer said they would check with their R&D, but it might take several days.

Some solutions to issues like these say this can be done in the BIOS, but there's no guarantee, and I don't want to mess with the BIOS anyway.

Is there another way I can find the keymap code for this key? Some keep-it-simple method that won't fry my overheated brain?

Thanks very much,
Liz J