The Switcheroo

Today I switched from a Dell Inspiron 9300 running Ubuntu Linux to a brand new MacBook; as a longtime GNU/Linux and Windows user, I must say that I’m loving my new home (well, give me a bash and screen and I’m pretty much set ).

I’m a keyboard junkie, so the only real hassle at the moment is getting used to OS X specific shortcuts and keys; I found a very good open source software which easily resolved my biggest gripes; the default Home and End behaviour and the absence of an Option key on the right side of the keyboard.

The software is DoubleCommand; it comes as a preferences page which allows to easily change the mappings and behaviour of your Mac keyboard.

My current settings

Enter key acts as option key

This option makes the small enter key to act as an option key, which is useful if you’re accustomed to the AltGr key commonly used in the PC world; having a second option key on the right allows to enter many useful symbols using only one hand

Shift backspace as fwd delete

This pretty intuitive combination allows you to overcome the missing Canc key without too much trouble.

PC style home and end keys

When I’m not working with something like VIM, I have a strong habit (pretty much like smoking) to use the Home and End keys to place the cursor at the start/end of the line; OS X defaults to use Home and End to place the cursor at the beginning/end of the entire document.

Another option which could be useful for switchers could be swapping Command and Control keys, so you could use common shortcuts like CTRL+C for copying text instead of the OS X default Command+C, but I think that this could become a bad habit for the long term OS X experience.