https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MetaKeyProblems Linux console If your Meta key works in the console, but Meta + Control + something doesn’t work, it may have to do with your .inputrc assuming the console sends 8-bit characters. Take a look at the dumpkeys man page and friends. You will find that for most Linux kernels, some combinations of keys and modifiers are defined, but not for all -- because the kernel will only take around 256 different events. emacs alt ctrl c-m does not work terminal http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/readline.html