Re: The 2018 is the year of Linux on a keyboard, right?


  • area_can

    @cvi said in The 2018 is the year of Linux on a laptop, right?:

    @bb36e said in The 2018 is the year of Linux on a laptop, right?:

    No dice.

    If it's a fancy keyboard and if you're under X, check with xinput.

    My ("gaming") mouse had a bunch of problems with the extra keys; turns out it registers itself multiple times as different devices (it shows up as like two keyboards and three mice or something). Under Windows it has a special driver that handles those, but under linux things get a bit confused when left click reports mouse button zero (or whatever left click is) and like mouse button 22 at the same time.

    </wild ass guess>

    Worth a shot, but nope, no special drivers needed and IIRC it appears like a generic input device in Windows.

    If I could get this working and also find a global equalizer under Linux that didn't cause either:

    • audio skipping/delays when sound sources are stopped/started (pulseaudio equalizer module)
    • random crackling, pops, skips and loops (pulseeffects)
    • required me to run an additional secondary audio system and the hell that is that additional complexity and configuration (JACK+calf)

    then I'd be all set to use Linux. :/



  • @bb36e said in Re: The 2018 is the year of Linux on a keyboard, right?:

    Worth a shot, but nope, no special drivers needed and IIRC it appears like a generic input device in Windows.

    Did you test it with another keyboard to make sure it's the keyboard ?

    Also, try it in another USB port. Unlikely but I've see weird bugs with flaky USB ports.

    Also, seem like you can test your keyboard if you have access to a Windows machine : https://elitekeyboards.com/switchhitter.php

    If I could get this working and also find a global equalizer under Linux that didn't cause either:

    • audio skipping/delays when sound sources are stopped/started (pulseaudio equalizer module)
    • random crackling, pops, skips and loops (pulseeffects)
    • required me to run an additional secondary audio system and the hell that is that additional complexity and configuration (JACK+calf)

    Are you sure all those sound issues are not caused by pulseeffects ?

    Looks pretty unstable for now

    Some open issues:

    • Pulseeffects drains battery when no sound is playing at all
    • Changing sound volume causes distortions
    • Messing around with latency causes instant crash
    • CPU usage increases when all audio stops

    FakeEdit: delays/skip/crackling/pops ??? this thing is coded in Python :headdesk:



  • @bb36e Does pressing the offending keys generate any events at all? E.g. in xev?

    For audio, I stick with plain alsa. It's enough for my needs (simple routing and stuff). The only thing it lacks is per-application volume control, which would be neat. IIRC jack can run on top of alsa directly (but it's been a while; I think I had a setup with alsa+jack+xwax).


  • area_can

    @timebandit the pops are only caused if I use pulseeffects. This doesn't use the pulseaudio-equalizer sink and IIRC it implements the equalizer code on its own.

    The pulseaudio-equalizer module does not rely on pulseeffects. it's written in C but the module is slated to be removed and does not perform very well.

    Jackd+calf kind of works but the config somehow results in application incompatibilities, even though everything's being routed from PA to jack


  • area_can

    @cvi said in Re: The 2018 is the year of Linux on a keyboard, right?:

    For audio, I stick with plain alsa. It's enough for my needs (simple routing and stuff).

    This was OK when I set up a minimal installation on my laptop (except the fact that alsaequal doesn't allow any sort of post-amp, making EQed sound really quiet if you properly boost specific bands), but Debian GNOME comes with PA out of the box so I didn't want to break it. Also, Firefox dropped support for direct Alsa output and now requires PA.



  • @bb36e said in Re: The 2018 is the year of Linux on a keyboard, right?:

    Also, Firefox dropped support for direct Alsa output and now requires PA.

    Ah, FML. Looks like one of the firefox updates actually pulled in PA without me noticing. (OTOH, alsamixer/.asoundrc/... still works fine, so I guess I'm mostly OK with the situation.)

    Edit: I'm confused. PuleAudio is present on the system, but the daemon doesn't seem to be running. I still get sound in FF. This is not the expected behaviour (the expected behaviour is that PAd is running and there's no sound). 馃槙



  • Here's some info to try fixing your audio issues:


  • area_can

    @timebandit said in Re: The 2018 is the year of Linux on a keyboard, right?:

    Here's some info to try fixing your audio issues:

    been there, done that. tsched=0 didn't do shit, unfortunately.


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