Ergonomic keyboards?

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

when using keyboard instead of evdev, as I stated before:
working
start
search
mail
prev/next
mute
volume up/down
play/pause
calculator

this means xev can see something when typing on them.

not working yet
Launch 1,2,3,4,5
favorite
Zoom scroll

since prev/next send events, it's *really* wierd that xbinkeys didn't, since it's working here.. (may be you just missed something :S )

Anyway, my point is now to make the 'non-working' keys working!
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geniux · Veteran Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1400 Location: /home

I might mention that my prev/next works for my multimedia apps but not with my browser which I'd like, yeah I'm a lazy surfer
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truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

As a lazy surfer I just use the Mouse Gestures extension for firefox (As I was used to it with opera...) really , really great! You should try it

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geniux · Veteran Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1400 Location: /home

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

well, I'm back with some news, as I said before I found several patches to make these keyboard working (Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000),

there are:
1. [PATCH] usb: The HID Simple Driver Interface 0.3.1 (core)
2. [PATCH] usb: HID Simple Driver Interface 0.3.1 (Kconfig and Makefile)

and the patch for this keyboard NEK4K:
3. [PATCH] usb: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 Driver 0.3.1

Since these patches are a bit old, There was some problem patching the kernel. I just did it manually (yeah :oops:

)

From thatn I made a single patch for you to try it and help me :/

download it here: NEK4K.patch

(I'm running vanilla-sources-2.6.18-rc7, but this shouldn't be a problem )

after patching the kernel you should have new menu items in device drivers --> usb

But I can't make the kernel:

purplerhino · Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject:

wow, you're hardcore. i just installed lineakd and set it up to make forward/back do "rhythmbox --next" "rhythmbox --prev" and calulator button to run gcalctool... all the other buttons work fine with gnome keyboard shortcuts, except the favorites and the zoom. But they do not make any xev events (and no message in dmesg either, like the wiki said they might, so I figured getting them to work was hopeless) I am content with this setup, I wasn't planning on doing any kernel hacking! good luck with that

geniux · Veteran Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1400 Location: /home

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

yeahhh, but we've already said all that. We have the same keys working, I'm just trying to make the others working.

Anf for your information, using lineakd or xbindkeys is just the same, what you can do with xbindkeys is possible to do with lineakd :wink:

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geniux · Veteran Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1400 Location: /home

masseya · Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:14 am Post subject:

I know most of this thread has focused on larger keyboards, but if you're looking for a smaller ergonomic keyboard or interested in just trying out something new you might consider TypeMatrix. (http://www.typematrix.com/)

They have Dvorak versions as well. I have used both the 2030 and the 2020 and found them to be very solid and comfortable. In particular, I find it much easier on me when I'm constantly switching back and forth from the mouse.
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Sedrik · Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:10 am Post subject:

trantorvega · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 13

For the possessors of the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000:

I wrote this howto with informations to get ALL the keys recognised by X, along with custom XKB files.

http://gentoo-wiki.com/index.php?title=HOWTO_Microsoft_Natural_Ergonomic_Keyboard_4000

Comments are welcome.

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

that sounds good, I did not tried yet, but from what I read you just applied the same patch I applied. That's wierd, since I didn't get any result. May be the patches I used were too old for this kernel version. :?:

anyway will try&comment this tonight.
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truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

With the patches I now have event for every keys ! Unfortunately, I can't set the Layout for the keyboard using evdev, this is really annoying. With the keyboard driver I just set

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

oh well it's working, so here here how I did:

Follow the first steps in the gentoo-wiki: patch the kernel, then configure udev, I gave my udev settings the post just before, but you can also use those which are on the wiki.

then configure xorg.conf so that it uses the driver keyboard for the corekeyboard (for me it was "/dev/input/nek4k0") and evdev for the other one (still for me it was: "/dev/input/nek4k1")

bigbob73 · Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:04 pm Post subject:

Truc, Thanks for the very nice how-to. Can't wait to try it tonight!

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truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

trantorvega · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 13

Truc: I use an italian layout with no problem, even if I wrote "us" in the howto.
Can you show me the output of setxkbmap -print ?
(Of course I also use the xkb modifications I list in the howto).
Mine is:

trantorvega · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 13

After further examinations I've commented and explained the pros and cons of your solution here

http://gentoo-wiki.com/Talk:HOWTO_Microsoft_Natural_Ergonomic_Keyboard_4000

I've yet to understand what kind of problems you had with your french layout by the way.
Waiting additional informations on that.
I've believe though that you didn't make all the necessary changes to the various xkb files and the various "Xkb*" options in xorg.conf. Remember that kbd (or the old keyboard) have different keycodes than evdev and, as I said in the Talk linked above, "XkbModel" must be set to "evdev" or an extension of it, like my custom "microsoftnek4k" that i show in the howto; the "pc105" I see in the xorg.conf you posted must therefore be replaced if you use the evdev driver.

P.S. xmodmap works just fine here. The problems you had experienced might follow from what said above.

truc · Advocate Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 3199

actually I've had masked the new xorg-7.1n and input driver to go with, because there was a problem when launching more than one Xserver, it seems the problem is gone with the new Beta nvidia drivers, so I've unmasked the new xorg, evdev, and the nvidia-drivers Beta.

This is really different! first of all, my /dev/input/nek4k symlink no longer

*I now have an evdev man page:)

So I tried to use evdev for both devices, the Layoiut thing now works, but there is still this problem with the favorite key.

If I still use keyboard for one of the device I don't have this problem

And for xmodmap, actually, it already worked that's why I posted my xmodmap file. (it was just at the beginning that for an unknonw readon it doesn't work.

Gentoo-wiki is currently down, so I cannot check the discution about the pros and the cons of doing it my way. But will check it ASAP

Since my symlink don't work anymore here is a part of my udev rules:

trantorvega · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 13

Thanks for making me notice the fact I am using X.org 7.1 :idea:

The evdev implementation, as far as i know, changed from 6.9 to 7.0. I don't know about 7.0 to 7.1.

Basically, if you read the recent addition to the howto describing how the evdev X driver generates keycodes, just now that kbd and keyboard generate different keycodes than evdev, therefore the kbd-generated keycode for Down Arrow is different than the evdev-generated keycode for Favorites, so in your case they do not overlap. On the other hand the key number 1 and the Print key are both managed by the same evdev-driven InputDevice, so they still have the same keycode. The problem is at kernel level, or rather in the fact that X and console do not accept keycodes higher than 255 (1 byte integers), so the right keycodes in the kernel driver for the six keys I mentioned in the howto cannot be used (the X evdev driver alter them truncating their values to 8 bits and causing those annoying overlaps, while the kbd driver and the console simply ignores them).
I've written to liyu about using lower keycodes for those keys, even if they would not be the proper ones listed by /usr/include/linux/input.h (being KEY_FAVORITES, KEY_FN_F1, KEY_FN_F2, KEY_FN_F3, KEY_FN_F4, KEY_FN_F5).
A good advice would also be to customise your xkb files with keycodes and symbols files adapted for this keyboard (the geometry file is not strictly necessary, even if quite complicate to write) and update then the rules file.