I built PowerToys for Linux in Python. Here's how key remapping works on Wayland

Описание и применение

Knobu реализует универсальный ключевой маппер для Linux, работая как на Wayland, так и на X11, захватывая физические клавиатуры и отправляя события виртуальной клавиатуры.

Задача

Wayland does not allow applications to intercept key events, preventing a universal key remapper.

Результат

Knobu provides a single key‑remapping daemon that works across KDE, GNOME, Wayland, and X11 by operating below the compositor.

Рабочий процесс

• Create a virtual keyboard with python‑evdev's UInput
• Grab each physical keyboard device
• Read key events, apply remap rules, write transformed events to the virtual keyboard

Доказательства

On X11, remapping tools could ask the X server to intercept keys. On Wayland, that's deliberately impossible: an app only sees keys while its own window is focused.

Источник

Linux exposes every input device as /dev/input/event* (evdev). A process can grab a device, which means nobody else (including the compositor) receives its events.

Источник

Knobu waits until dev.active_keys() is empty before grabbing.

Источник