In OSX the ALT is mapped to Option. When running a X11 application like the !M NX client, things like ALT-TAB, or ALT-MENU wont work unless you add the following to dot-Xmodmap.
Basic method:
keycode 66 = Alt_L
clear Mod1
add Mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R
More complicated method:
! Make the Alt/Option key be Alt_L instead of Mode_switch
keycode 66 = Alt_L! Make Meta_L be a Mod4 and get rid of Mod2
clear mod2
clear mod4
add mod4 = Meta_L! Make Alt_L be a Mod1
clear mod1
add mod1 = Alt_L
In order to get this to load automatically, you need to to add something to dot-xinitrc or similar. I still haven’t comfirmed the exact details for this. The more complicate method link about also has a discussion about Customizing Fullscreen X11 on Mac OS X. There also some useful tips about keyboards and mice at these two sites. This guy is also running a similar setup with OSX and FreeNX. I think I probably need a larger screen, as well, to improve the combined Ubuntu-NX/OSX experience. 
3 comments ↓
Just wanted to say thanks very much for this. I'm using NX in OS X to a Linux server and couldn't figure out how to get the Alt keys to work. This works beautifully! Thank you for sharing! =:)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you… You have no idea how much searching I've done. The first method works wonders!
Cheers!
JB
Thanks for your post. It works fine for me too (I conntect to Ubuntu 11.10 through NX from Mac OS X 10.5.8), except for the space key. To write a space in Ubuntu I need to use SHIFT+SPACE on my Mac keyboard.
Any idea of what is messed up in my configuration?
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