Adjusting keyboard sensitivity in a command line terminal?

Question

When using a tty login shell by entering Ctrl-Alt-F1 from an Ubuntu 12.04 install on a laptop the keyboard seems overly sensitive and if my finger lingers for a moment on a button I end up with repeats of the same letter. Is there a way to adjust keyboard sensitivity that would influence the keyboard response when accessing a login shell from a tty instance?

Answer 1

It is called 'keyboard auto repeat rate' and you can set it with kbdrate Mine is set to:

$ sudo kbdrate
Typematic Rate set to 10.9 cps (delay = 250 ms)

You can set same with:

$ sudo kbdrate -r 10.9 -d 250
Typematic Rate set to 10.9 cps (delay = 250 ms)

Check the manual page for exact options:

man kbdrate

Unsure where the default setting is done, but /etc/rc.local, your .bash_profile, .profile or .bashrc sounds like a good place.