What didn't work about it? I have this in my .gtkrc-2.0: gtk-key-theme-name="Emacs" And this in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini: [Settings] gtk-ke

What didn't work about it? I have this in my .gtkrc-2.0: gtk-key-theme-name="Emacs" And this in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini: [Settings] gtk-key-theme-name = Emacs If those settings appear in both places, after restarting a GTK+ application the bindings should just work. They actually work better than in OS X because you're free to use the Alt/Meta shortcuts to skip words without reaching for the cursor keys. There are a couple of GTK+ applications that annoyingly override the shortcuts, like Pidgin for example (which binds C-w to "close window").