The dreaded caps lock key. Never has a key been so useless yet so
ever-present. As a heavy emacs user, I keep myself sane by turning it into
an extra control key. Various linux distros and desktops have their GUI apps
for changing keyboard layout, but I found some simple commands that work
pretty much everywhere.

In a virtual console (i.e. ctrl-alt-f1):

loadkeys emacs

In an X-window session:

set xkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps

You can put these in your shell startup file and breathe a sigh of relief.