Remap Capslock to Escape
Caps Lock has always been a useless key. It has a purpose fewer than once a month yet snares the careless typist daily. With this trick you can remap it to the Escape key and transform this useless pain into a convenient key for vi!
Remapping for X-Windows
Put this in some file, such as .xmodmap.
! Remap CapsLock to escape remove Lock = Caps_Lock keysym Caps_Lock = Escape
Now you can edit your .xinitrc and add:
xmodmap .xmodmap
Remapping for the Console
To also remap at the console you need to do something slightly different. Edit some file, such as /etc/keymap, and insert the following test:
keycode 58 = Escape
Now you can remap Caps Lock manually by the command 'loadkeys /etc/keycode', or you can put 'loadkeys /etc/keycode' into your /etc/rc.local to have the command executed at boot.