Linux 5.10 To Play Nicely With The Matias Wireless Aluminum Keyboard

[kpedersen]

I have only tried the Apple Aluminium keyboard from ~2006 so can't comment on the exact keyboard in the article (a bluetooth keyboard creates a completely different set of issues in any case). However...

but then some new keyboard came out with some new keys so the driver needed updating. New hardware....driver updates....nah, that can't be right, something fishy there

And yet I clearly mentioned that the HP keyboard of the similar age did work... Because it was standard and sent the correct signals out. Nothing to do with being "new". It has everything to do with not being crap.

RTFA, man. RTFA. It was working correctly, at least with the Apple HID driver, but this keyboard added some extra features like friggin Function Keys.

Btw, you don't need "function keys" to go into the Apple startup select... You just need a non-defective keyboard.

[reavertm]

Save some Chinese clones, Matias is primary producer of modern Alps-type mechanical switches nowadays. Apple-like keyboards is just part of their portfolio.

[numacross]

Not cross vendor but if I bought an IBM keyboard for that matching IBM terminal, it would have a good chance of working. This obviously is something Apple failed almost 40 years later.

So just like the SPARC T4-1 not supporting Sun Type 6 Keyboards?
I mean they only went through 6 types before arriving at USB-HID in type 7.

[kpedersen]

So just like the SPARC T4-1 not supporting Sun Type 6 Keyboards?

Exactly! Non-standard (or in the Type 6 case, pre-standard). So many years later, why do the clowns today keep making the same mistakes?

Though these keyboards do get the benefit of doubt because they were made before usb keyboards were standardized. Apple's crap in 2006 doesn't have this same excuse.

(I actually have a USB Type 6. I wonder if it would work in a T4 based server. It works in Linux, BSD and Windows so probably already doing better than the Apple crud)

[Trevelyan]

I have a USB SUN type 7. Works fine in Linux, but I have yet to find a way to get the extra function keys, like volume, to work in windows 10.

[numacross]

Exactly! Non-standard (or in the Type 6 case, pre-standard). So many years later, why do the clowns today keep making the same mistakes?

Though these keyboards do get the benefit of doubt because they were made before usb keyboards were standardized. Apple's crap in 2006 doesn't have this same excuse.

(I actually have a USB Type 6. I wonder if it would work in a T4 based server. It works in Linux, BSD and Windows so probably already doing better than the Apple crud)

Wait a minute, you said it was all solved in the 70s, but it wasn't after all? But then it was solved only in-vendor, but that wasn't true either?

[torsionbar28]

Not sure why anyone would want to clone the Apple keyboard. Apple keyboards suck. Pure form over function. The chicklet keys, the mushy feel, the too-short key travel. No thanks. For the same price, I'll stick with a real keyboard with Cherry MX mechanical switches. This Matias Wireless keyboard is targeting the vanity crowd who obsesses over how "thin" their computer and peripherals are.

[kpedersen]

Wait a minute, you said it was all solved in the 70s, but it wasn't after all? But then it was solved only in-vendor, but that wasn't true either?

Not only is my Type 6 USB and does work on modern platforms (including the BIOS / EFI unlike the Apple junk) but it was hardly created in the 70s so wouldn't even apply to the argument. So please revisit your post.

I have a USB SUN type 7. Works fine in Linux, but I have yet to find a way to get the extra function keys, like volume, to work in windows 10.

My Type 6 does come up with random events in `xev`. And since Sun was very much a part of X11's creation, it generally has X11 events linked. Unfortunately lots of window managers don't know how to handle them so you may need to fiddle with the source. Fvwm does have identifiers for some of them.

[George99]

Wait a minute, you said it was all solved in the 70s, but it wasn't after all?

Sending a man to the moon was all solved in the 60s and today we have to figure it out all again...

[stargeizer]

Sending a man to the moon was all solved in the 60s and today we have to figure it out all again...

At that time, the motto was "Sending a man to the moon, no matter the cost". Nowadays the motto is "Send a man to the mars, the cheapest way".

For keyboards, in the past they were only switches, and all good, nowadays you have switches, RGB controls (usually involving an ARM controller in-between), NRO keyboards, 60%, 75%, 90%, 112% beyboards, gaming keyboards.... gotta love modding and kapitalizm, comrade!! (j/k and /s for the impaired)