I have been working all my life on PC/Linux, now I’m working with macOS due to Xcode dependency for iPhone compilation.

In the beginning, it’s really hard to switch your mind because the control keys win/alt/ctrl keys are made in different order ctrl/option/command.

I think it’s better to use some systems with his default configuration. I will show you how you can hack your PC keyboard to work as a mac keyboard.

Easy peasy Japanesey

This is mac keyboard distribution (with alt on left):

Caution: Before removing any of the keyboard keys, unplug the keyboard from the computer or turn off the computer. I highly recommend seeing some youtube videos about removing keys or cleaning keyboards.

PC keyboards have an alt key on right. Just remove win and alt keys…

… and swap them. Tada!!! … now you have the same physical (and visual) order as mac keyboard.

Remap Keys

The last step consists of telling macOS, to change this keys behavior.

Go to System Preferences → Keyboard and select and press the [Modifier Keys…] button. Select your PC Keyboard (my wireless Logitech keyboard was identified as “USB receiver”) on the list and switch ⌥ Option to ⌘ Command and ⌘ Command to ⌥ Option press [OK] button and …

Alternative

A better approach is to use Karabiner: an excellent keyboard customizer.

Because you can modify the behavior on each key, event on the left o right side. And this forgotten Application Key can resurrect as ⌥ Option (or ⌘ Command).

Just select on target device PC Keyboard and define these keys change on Simple Modifications tab:

Sometimes period key on Numpad writes a comma, that why remapping as the period it's a good choice.

And if you have problems with <> and ºª keys, swap them with non_us_backslash and grave_accent_and_tilde.

More complex combinations can be applied from ke-complex-modifications

Bonus Track

One thing that I dislike on MacOS is switch between apps because can't enable an option to switch between windows. The keyboard shortcut to move focus to next window ⌘ +` is hard to access and if your input is focused on a place that can be used to write doesn't work because his priority is writing text in this case: backtick character.

To avoid this annoying behavior, just changed to:

Now can switch between apps with ⌘ + ⇥ and between windows on the same app with ⌥ + ⇥

That's All Folks!
Happy Coding 🖖