Android, Emacs: Slow Progress

So I'm trying to get Emacs working on my Nexus 7 (using cyanogenmod). As with many things Android related, it's three steps forward, two steps back. But even that is progress.

I first wanted to remap the Caps Lock key to Control, which I've done on every system I've been in charge of for the last ten years. That's easy: just edit the /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl file.

IN ORDER to do that, of course, I needed to remount the /system filesytem, because it's mounted read-only:

$ su
# mount -o rw,remount /system

But then the file itself is read-only, so:

# chmod 666 /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl

... and then edit it (which I did with the VIM port, VimTouch), commenting out the line:

key 58 CAPS_LOCK

... and adding:

key 58 CTRL_LEFT

... and finally rebooting.

THEN, after downloading and installing the only Emacs port I could find, I get a segfault when it opens. This is a known bug, with a known (and ugly) workaround: after going into Preferences and changing the Font Size to 10, it successfully launches.

So I try to edit a file. The first file I want to edit, of course, will be the .init or .emacs file, whichever one this app comes with. And then I run into another problem: Alphanumeric keys work, as do any non-alphanumeric symbol that shares a key with [a-zA-Z0-9] , but not such silly keys like ,<.>?/{[}]|\~`_-+= .

So now I have a hobbled, marginally functional version of Emacs on the tablet. Suggestions include to use the Hacker's (virtual) Keyboard, but I really need honest, physical keys to type with. I have found no workaround for this issue, and the project seems to have been abandoned.

Ah well, a wild goose chase gives you exercise, if nothing else (to paraphrase Neil Stephenson).

cheers,
Adam