[ltp] Little OT: Keyboard with UltraNav on Linux

[Richard]

>
> I was wondering if this IBM USB keyboard with UltraNav would work on my
> Gentoo Linux desktop?
>
> Product page: http://www-131.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=-840&storeId=10000001&langId=-1&dualCurrId=1000073&categoryId=2581898&productId=8581826
> Picture: http://www.shoppen.nu/images/ibm_tp_keyb.jpg

I've had one on my Mandrake desktop for ages. Yes, it works great.

Caveats:

1)I never managed to make tpd4 work on it. This means that the trackpoint 
is limited to normal sensitivity, whereas I prefer the very light touch 
with the trackpoint sensitivity at maximum. The new trackpoint/synaptics 
driver may work  - and if it does, please tell me how you did it! Normal 
sensitivity is perfectly OK though.

2)I personally cannot bear the touchpads. Fixed easily by opening the 
keyboard, and moving the touchpad into some empty internal space, then 
putting a blanking plate (with a penguin, obviously) over the hole.

3)Scroll. The trackpoint has 3 buttons in a line, (same as the newer (<2 
year old) thinkpads, but different  from the 2+1 layout of the older ones.
The 2+1 layout allowed you to use BOTH emulatewheel and emulate-scroll, to 
obtain the full 3-button wheelmouse functionality. You can't do this with 
the 3-in-a line layout (because it is impractical to press button-1 and 
button-3 simultaneously with the same finger). Solutions might be
 	a)tpscroll
 	b)some clever hackery in xorg.conf
 	c)what I did: fit a 4th button into the blanking plate, and use 
the guts of a USB mouse to get a scroll-wheel. I'll post details if anyone 
is interested.

4)Lockups. I have occasionally had lockups of the device, or sometimes 
just the mouse. I suspect this is common to all USB keyboards, and may be 
mandriva specific. This happens about every 2 months, often when I am 
doing something else with USB (eg removable disk). It can usually be fixed 
by unplug and then re-plug the device. My solution: I already have a 
regular optical mouse which I use for design work (eg PCBs), and this is 
PS/2. I have a desktop shortcuts for "sync; service usb restart".

5)This actually means I have 5 pointing devices on my system:
 	trackpoint   (used all the time)
 	touchpad     (never used)
 	usb-7-button gutted mouse, providing just a button 4.
 	PS/2 mouse (optical)
 	graphics tablet.

6)Not that you'd ever need it with a desktop, but the 'Fn' key doesn't 
work. The volume-up and down keys do work, and can be mapped using xev and 
xbindkeys.

Hope that helps,

Richard