I read the KDE2 FAQ and followed their suggestion to place the following lines xmodmap -e 'keycode 22 = BackSpace' xmodmap -e "keysym Delete = BackSpace" in my .xinitrc file. The backspace key works fine when I first log in now (deletes char to the left of cursor and moves cursor to the left) but somehow at some later point in the session the keycode 22 gets mysteriously changed to Delete and then the Backspace key doesn't work as desired anymore. Any suggestions on how to determine the application that is changing keycode 22 from BackSpace to Delete and how to prevent this behavior in the future? I'm using XFree4 if that is important. Thanks.