I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, both at home and at work. As normal keyboards are smaller in width than my shoulders I find using them forces me to twist my hands to get my fingers on the base keys for touch-typing. Imagine putting your hands out in front of you, palms down, now pretend there is a pivot through the base of your thumb and rotate your hands outwards, i.e. your little fingers towards the forearm, this is the twisting I, and no doubt many others, have to do to get their fingers to align with the base-keys for touch-typing (i.e. ASDF for the left hand and JKL; for the right hand).
The solution, I discovered long ago, was to use an ergonomic keyboard as the base key are further apart and slightly angled so that when you put your hands in front of you the keys are in the natural position to fall under your fingers. There is the added bonus that most ergonomic keyboards have built-in wrist supports too.
Having tried a few over the years I was delighted when I was bought a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 by my then new employers at my request for an ergonomic keyboard. This really is the most comfortable keyboard I've ever used. The key layout is superb, and there are lots of funky multi-media keys that can be configured to provide short-cuts.
At the time there were no drivers in the Linux kernel for this device. Fortunately someone (Liyu) had started working on writing the drivers and with 2.6.24 support was available in kernel.
You will need kernel >=2.6.24. Select the following options (whether you compile them as modules or into the kernel is your choice, I opt for the later).
Device Drivers --->
Input Device Support --->
<*> Event Interface
HID Devices --->
<*> USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support
Now compile, install your kernel and reboot.
With your kernel configured you should now find that plugging the keyboard in results in two /dev/input/event* devices being listed
dmesg | grep 'Microsoft' # dmesg | grep 'Microsoft' usb 3-2: Manufacturer: Microsoft input: Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.0/input/input4 input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000] on usb-0000:00:10.1-2 input: Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:10.1/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.1/input/input5 input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Device [Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000] on usb-0000:00:10.1-2 # ls /dev/input/by-path/ -l total 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 11 08:56 pci-0000:00:10.1-usb-0:1:1.0-event-mouse -> ../event3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 11 08:56 pci-0000:00:10.1-usb-0:1:1.0-mouse -> ../mouse0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 11 08:56 pci-0000:00:10.1-usb-0:2:1.0-event-kbd -> ../event4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 11 08:56 pci-0000:00:10.1-usb-0:2:1.1-event- -> ../event5
Note the numbers at the end of each line as these are the devices that you need to configure (and yours may well differ if you have other USB devices to me). Further information on the device can be obtained using lsusb and looking for the relevant section.
# lsusb -v Bus 003 Device 003: ID 045e:00db Microsoft Corp. Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0 Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 8 idVendor 0x045e Microsoft Corp. idProduct 0x00db Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0 bcdDevice 1.73 iManufacturer 1 Microsoft iProduct 2 Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 iSerial 0 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 59 bNumInterfaces 2 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xa0 (Bus Powered) Remote Wakeup MaxPower 100mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device bInterfaceSubClass 1 Boot Interface Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 1 Keyboard iInterface 0 HID Device Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 33 bcdHID 1.11 bCountryCode 0 Not supported bNumDescriptors 1 bDescriptorType 34 Report wDescriptorLength 60 Report Descriptors: ** UNAVAILABLE ** Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes bInterval 10 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 1 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device bInterfaceSubClass 0 No Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 0 None iInterface 0 HID Device Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 33 bcdHID 1.11 bCountryCode 0 Not supported bNumDescriptors 1 bDescriptorType 34 Report wDescriptorLength 86 Report Descriptors: ** UNAVAILABLE ** Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes bInterval 10 Device Status: 0x0000 (Bus Powered)
You now need to write some custom ''udev'' rules so that the keyboard is correctly identified.
/etc/udev/rules.d/10-net4k.rules
KERNEL=="event*",SYSFS{modalias}=="usb:v045Ep00DBd0173dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc01ip01", MODE="0644", NAME="input/event4" KERNEL=="event*",SYSFS{modalias}=="usb:v045Ep00DBd0173dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00", MODE="0644", NAME="input/event5"
In order to get your keyboard working properly under Xorg you need to utilise both device interfaces.
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard1" Driver "evdev" Option "Protocol" "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event4" Option "XkbModel" "microsoftnek4k" Option "XkbLayout" "gb" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard2" Driver "evdev" Option "Protocol" "evdev" Option "Device" "/dev/input/event5" Option "XkbModel" "microsoftnek4k" Option "XkbLayout" "gb" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" EndSection Section "ServerLayout" ... InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Keyboard2" "SendCoreEvents" ... EndSection
UPDATE This section used to contain detailed information on configuring X11 to generate keycodes but this is now redundant as the keyboards work 'out of the box' with each key illiciting keycodes when pressed, however the zoom slider gives keycodes > 255 which Xorg can not handle. The simplest solution is to use udev to capture/remap these and then bind them.
Pretty simple, just add the following line to /lib/udev/rules.d/95-keymap.rules…
ENV{ID_VENDOR}=="Microsoft", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="00db", RUN+="keymap $name 0xc022d zoomin 0xc022e zoomout"
You can now use showkey (part of sys-apps/kbd) to test the keyboard and should find that each key illicits an X keycode. Emerge sys-apps/kbd if needed…
emerge -av sys-apps/kbd
The keycodes I got are…
# Web/Home keycode 172 press keycode 172 release # Search keycode 217 press keycode 217 release # Mail keycode 155 press keycode 155 release # Favourites 1 keycode 184 press keycode 184 release # Favourites 2 keycode 185 press keycode 185 release # Favourites 3 keycode 186 press keycode 186 release # Favourites 4 keycode 187 press keycode 187 release # Favourites 5 keycode 188 press keycode 188 release # Volume Down keycode 114 press keycode 114 release # Volume Up keycode 115 press keycode 115 release # Play/Pause keycode 164 press keycode 164 release # Calculator keycode 140 press keycode 140 release # Favourite keycode 156 press keycode 156 release # Back keycode 158 press keycode 158 release # Forward keycode 159 press keycode 159 release # Zoom Up keycode 418 press keycode 418 release # Zoom Down keycode 419 press keycode 419 release # F1 (Without F-Lock) keycode 138 press keycode 138 release # F2 (Without F-Lock) keycode 131 press keycode 131 release # F3 (Without F-Lock) keycode 182 press keycode 182 release # F4 (Without F-Lock) keycode 181 press keycode 181 release # F5 (Without F-Lock) keycode 134 press keycode 134 release # F6 (Without F-Lock) keycode 206 press keycode 206 release # F7 (Without F-Lock) keycode 232 press keycode 232 release # F8 (Without F-Lock) keycode 233 press keycode 233 release # F9 (Without F-Lock) keycode 231 press keycode 231 release # F10 (Without F-Lock) keycode 432 press keycode 432 release # F11 (Without F-Lock) keycode 234 press keycode 234 release # F12 (Without F-Lock) keycode 210 press keycode 210 release
You can bind actions to pretty much any key(/combination), again the Gentoo Wiki : Multimedia Keys is the best reference, although its a little dated now, so heres what I've done using the above keycodes.
I used to lose keymaps, but this is now pretty much redundant thanks to the obsolescence of HAL.
gentoo linux keyboard hardware howto