General compatibility Q's: wireless keyboards and mice

[SteveRiley]

I'm tired of hunching over my laptop when I'm at the office and have a nice new desk upon which to spread myself out. And of course, no desk is complete without a shiny new keyboard and mouse. Like with the experiment of building a gaming system for my son, this is another product area that I just haven't paid much attention to lately. I've been exploring Logitech's offerings, and these items intrigue me:

* Wireless Keyboard K350
* Cordless Optical TrackMan

Of course, the tech specs only indicate Windows (grr). I'm curious to know if anyone here uses these or similar products? How well do they work in Kubuntu?

[woodsmoke]

I know that his will be considered blasphemy but I use the old....I mean the OLD....not the new, MS Natural Multimedia keyboard.

And it MATCHES THE K350!!! a GREAT CHOICE!!! GET IT....but...if you want to fiddle with stuff:

This is NOT the new "ergonomic" MS keyaboard.

The new one is not both "angled to the sides" and also also "angled upward" (somewhat). It has been a lifesaver for my wrists becauses it allows the radius and ulna to be in a more natural configuration, as opposed to "horizontal".

I have found that it will work with almost any of the MS iterations of the dingus that receives the signal



and almost any MS mouse will work with it also.

It will be found automagically, but if one wants to search through the HUGE list of various keyaboards in setup, many, if not all, of the upper function keys will work also, depending on the way the scripts in usr are written, at least they used to a few years ago, I don't use them now, I just use the mouse.

But, as an indicator, even the "generic U.S." setup will give all of the "ctrl-@" keystroke combos for Kwin and for Compiz.

So, getting the upper keys to work might be a fun activity and something nice to post at the forum.

The point here is that one can "mix and match" the peices.

The only place to get the original() is from e-bay or something, here is an image:

Microsoft Wireless Natural Multimedia Keyboard

[whatthefunk]

My wireless Logitech M515 worked out of the box. Dont know if all other Logitech products would though...

[Ole Juul]

I used a very slick BenQ wireless mouse for a long time. No features needed so bluetooth just took care of it. I figured I needed wireless because the mouse is on my chair since I find it too difficult to use a desk. However, I eventually got a wired mouse because I was tired of the da** thing always falling asleep to preserve batteries - not to mention being tired of always putting batteries in it. ... Just some thoughts.

[GreyGeek]

In the days before laptops my wrists and hands got tired spending so many hours on the keyboard, so I bought the MS "ergonomic" keyboard that Woodsmoke pictured for my desktop at my home office. Worked beautifully. I got used to it very quickly.

HOWEVER, when I'd go to a client's site and use their regular keyboard my typing errors increased dramatically, and switching back and forth between the ergonomic and regular keyboard became ... frustrating . So, I retrained myself on a regular keyboard to keep my wrists straight with my arms and not twist them to keep my hands perpendicular to keyboard, in the horizontal plane. My index fingers stretch longer to reach their keys, and my little finger is curled more, but I have long fingers anyway. I continued to use that technique on laptops and never have wrist pain or fatigue, even when I am on my laptop 12 or more hours a day, which is often.