Can I use the My favorites keys of the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard in Linux?

How can I get the "Customizable Hot Keys"(2) to work?

The threads that I found did not result in anything useful. Some sites suggest recompiling the kernel, which does not sound like something I'd like to do. Did anyone get them to work?

I'm using the Ubuntu 9.10 Beta.

Solution 1:

First select a Microsoft keyboard in: System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layout > Keyboard Model. The 4000 isn't listed, but try the 'Multimedia keyboard' or something that sounds reasonably full-featured. They keys may just work. Try them, and change keyboards if they don't.

Then, you can try to customize things by the regular means (which in Ubuntu/GNOME is unfortunately not centralized, and can be tricky).

1. On the same tab, check out the options in "Layout options"

2. Customize more things in System > Preferences > Keyboard shortcuts. The options that are pre-defined here are pretty easy to set, you just select them and then press the key or key-combo you want to assign them to. This will be your most-used place for setting those keys.

3. Gnome has a more cryptic tool, run from the command line as 'gconf-editor' which can assign key-combos to things that aren't in the standard Keyboard shortcuts dialog. You'll have to google on how to use this.

Hope this helps.

Solution 2:

A short solution description:

1. System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Add
3. Name: e.g. "Start MonoDevelop"
4. Command: e.g. "monodevelop"
5. Apply
6. Click on the shortcut column at the "Start MonoDevelop" row
7. Press the hotkey