I prefer a short delay and a high repeat rate for my keyboard. On Red Hat, I used kbset, but when I ran an application that changed the keyboard settings, it couldn’t restore the settings. I looked for an alternative and found xkbset, written by Stephen Montgomery-Smith.

In addition to being able to set the keyboard reliably, it doesn’t impose any limits. That is both good and bad. Good because I used the highest values kbset allowed and wanted a higher repeat rate. Bad because I made the repeat rate so fast with xkbset that I couldn’t type a single letter. Whenever I tried, I got two or three letters. I had to copy and paste single letters with my mouse into the terminal to get a sane configuration.

On a side note, Stephen’s research is funded by the NSF. The weekly funding list shows how much money they’ve awarded and to whom.