I have an old keyboard. It’s filthy and banged up, but it does the job, and best of all, it doesn’t have all those unnecessary extra keys in the middle keypad area (i.e., “sleep” and all that). My keyboard also has a lovely, firm feel to it – none of this mushy softness that seems to plague newer keyboards.
But now that I’m running Linux, there’s a key I don’t have that I’m starting to miss.
My keyboard doesn’t have the Windows menu keys. That wasn’t a problem for me when I was running Microsoft stuff, because I tended to be more of a mouse-using snake. But I’ve discovered that lots of Linux software makes good use of those keys, in all kinds of clever hotkey combinations and shortcuts.
And here I sit, unable to take advantage of them.
Oh, the Irony
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Do the man!
man xmodmap. Maybe you'll solve the problem.
Used to remap keys all the time but haven't done it for many moons. The alt key is a standard meta key in X and you can drive around using that instead of the mouse. Alt-f pulls down the file menu here in Firefox.
-jet-
Kubuntu Keyboard Shortcuts.
In Kubuntu, Click on System Settings in the K menu, then click Keyboard and Mouse. Then click Keyboard Shortcuts, and you'll have access to all of the keyboard shortcuts. In addition, there's a scheme there that you can switch too that has done all of the work for you. In the Scheme drop box, click on the down arrow and then select "Windows Scheme" (without Win Key) and you'll get all that keyboard shortcut goodness back.
Doh, my bad
Guess I'm still just an old command line kinda geek...
Of course there's a GUI app that will make life so much easier. I just keep forgetting to go there first.
-jet-
Er, Uhh ...
Thanks for the suggestions, gents; I do need to be reminded to “man” for information still; and I like having, and exercising, a choice of ways to accomplish a single task. That definitely includes the command line.
That said, other than one program I set up numerous key shortcuts for, I have tended not to do that kind of thing. Seeing such a shortcut for enqueuing music in Amarok yesterday got me to thinking about it again ... and it amused me to miss those Windows keys after all those years of ignoring them.
That’s really all I was commenting on.
Old Keyboards Rock!
Sunni, I use an old IBM Model M keyboard, circa 1993. I won't touch a new keyboard if I can avoid it. The thing weighs enough to use as a self-defense weapon due to its steel base. I originally learned to type on a 1940's era manual typewriter, and I'm very hard on keyboards and this is the only one I've found that's tough enough for me. It's got loud, clicky keys with a solid feel that makes it easy to type fast and accurately. You can even field strip this thing, and clean it. Hackers love these things, and people look for them on ebay. That's where I got mine, and I plan to buy several more as spares.
There's even an article on it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_Keyboard
Field-stripping a Model M
http://www.preater.com/modelm/
It's the only keyboard that I have heard of that has fan sites on the web. It's simply awesome.
Model M keyboard
I have one of those somewhere in the house. It came on my PS/2 Model 70. (That machine never ran Windows. I started on it with OS/2 1.1 and went to Warp before replacing the hardware.)
As a 386 with 14MB of RAM, the PS/2 seems unlikely to be interesting today (maybe it'll be an antique someday), but the keyboard should be in its box in storage. Maybe I'll give it a try again someday.
The Sony keyboard I use now isn't too bad. Logitech seems to make interesting keyboards (my son uses one), along with great pointing devices (I prefer a trackball).