Old keyboard / Superkey

Sometimes when booting a live version of Linux there is a need for the "Superkey" to enter options. Quite a trick if an older laptop, or keyboard is involved.

Is there an alternative to the "Windows" key? I have an NRA attitude towards giving up my 1984 IBM keyboard.

You can get a new one with a windblows key http://pckeyboard.com/

Which distros are asking you to push the windows key? I don't remember ever seeing that.

I suppose I could always use the wife's miserable keyboard, but that old IBM will follow me to the grave.

The superkey is used in Ubuntu to overcome a BSOD conditions, via Grub.

Is it old enough it as an AT connector?

Yes it has the DIN 5 connector. I had to get a mini DIN 6 adapter for it a few motherboards ago, but that's all it ever needed.

I don't blame you for wanting to keep it. Mine's from '98, and I won't give it up either. I did manage to find a new cord for it thats got a mini DIN connector on it.

Soon you'll have to add on a usb adapter too, since ps/2 ports aren't starting to disappear.

bozo wrote:

I don't blame you for wanting to keep it. Mine's from '98, and I won't give it up either. I did manage to find a new cord for it thats got a mini DIN connector on it.

It is still the gold standard among keyboards. A good, solid made in the USA product.
Mine has been clicking for 28 years now, and is as good as it was in 84. Just in case, I have a spare packed away in plastic and dessicant, but it looks like I'll never need it.

bdquick wrote:

Soon you'll have to add on a usb adapter too, since ps/2 ports aren't starting to disappear.

I hope there will be one, as the market for these will be rather limited. If not, then I may have to look at a "Das Keyboard", which is also a Cherry switch based product, or just not bother upgrading again. I can't use the full power of the one I have now anyway.

The "clicky" keyboards have gained a resurgence the last few years, and there are a few companies that keyboards with real metal switches. I've also seen sites selling new in box, old stock.

Somewhere I have seen you mention that you own a Lenovo laptop. I understand those have the best keyboards among all comers. How do you find it in comparison to others?

It wasn't me with the Lenovo. I mostly have Dells in my house.

My wife has a Lenovo. The keyboard is decent, but nothing like our desktop keyboards. I think I might like my Compaq's keyboard better.

I guess in the end it's whatever you get used to. If you touch type it's pretty important. The chiclet type prevelant on most laptops does not lend itself to this. I had a Compaq back in the nineties, and as I recall it was pretty good, but a bit too small for my hands.

I've got a pretty good sized laptop; gives it room for an almost full-sized keyboard, including the numerical keyboard, a feature I really like. There's a minimum of function key + whatever key combinations. It is a tad soft when you're used to an IBM keyboard, but it could be much worse. My problem is with the touch pad. I constantly drag my thumbs over it, changing the position of the cursor. I've ended up just turning it off and using a wireless mouse. I like that better anyway.

Well, it has taken six months, but I finally stumbled on the answer, and here it is for whoever is interested:

http://www.howtogeek.com/119127/use-the-magic-sysrq-key-on-linux-to-fix-frozen-x-servers-cleanly-reboot-and-run-other-low-level-commands/

Good article, with a bunch of stuff I wish I could remember. I see it will allow you to get on after the BSOD situation, but it's not really a general substitute for the windows key, right? Or did I miss something? I guess I don't really know what the windows key is used for.

I just checked and found I had to turn it on. I guess Open SUSE isn't one of the distros that has it turned on by default.

I just tried Alt + SysRq + h and it didn't work, Now I have to wait for a lock-up, and see if it works then.

I didn't see an h option, but tried some of the others with varying success.
alt - sysrq flashed the screen. Repeating it terminated all extensions and logged me out.
alt - syrq -re was supposed to terminate all processes gracefully NOT. crashed the system requiring a hardware reset. Going back to the article, I should have waited a few seconds between keystrokes.
I have to rely on written memory more in the future.