keyboard and mouse combo

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Grogan
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keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Yes, I'm wanting to finally move into the world of having a single cordless receiver for a keyboard and mouse set. The problem is, I'm a fuss-ass. I'm generally not keen on Logitech or Microsoft anymore, but would take anything decent. I can get back to a less-than-mechanical (you have to watch "mechanical feel" in descriptions, because it'll just be a membrane keyboard with a longer stroke or something... like what I have now) keyboard, but one requirement I have in a mouse is a notched scroll wheel. I can't STAND those smooth scroll wheels that roll every time they are middle clicked (and/or get worse in that respect as they wear out). I also hate fractional scrolling like Microsoft mice.

I found what I thought was a nice MSI set, but it's just a bundle... two separate corded USB devices. Exactly what I'm trying to change my mind about.

This one "looks" good, but it could be crap. Again, "mechanical feel" for the keyboard and unknown characteristics of the mouse. I pulled the trigger on it anyway though, because if I ordered within "51 minutes" I can have it tomorrow :-)

https://www.amazon.ca/RedThunder-Wirele ... B09BR46F63

If I don't like it, I'll add it to the list of things I foolishly bought.

(I already did something stupid... the keyboard and mouse are rechargeable... looks like it's going to use a phone charger or something. Damnit, this is why I miss the old brick and mortar days... that shit would never have made it past reading the box and taking it up to a cashier in a store etc.)
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

Oh well, you should be able to return it. If it hasn't shipped yet you may still be able to cancel it and find one not like that.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

I know, but it's easier to just try it and see how it works out now that I have ordered it.

Chances are I'm not going to like the keyboard anyway, even without that detail. I am going to be chasing that IBM keyboard for the rest of my life. They just don't make anything that good anymore.

It's a small amount of money ($60... don't like to waste money, but that's trivial).

Moreover, my motivation is partly to see if ditching these peripherals will solve the mouse latency messages and occasional graphics driver crash* related to the mouse (that display manager microcontroller queuing error that happens in icewm, with firefox involved... I have yet to see it where Firefox wasn't involved)

* P.S. Let me rephrase that. "firmware" crash, more like (I kind of consider firmware blobs to be part of the driver... there is also low level real firmware on the cards too of course). It takes a complete power off to fix this when it happens, that means registers have to be cleared.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

There are companies making reproduction IBM keyboards (with USB).

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/NEW_M
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Yeah, we'll see about an actual "mechanical" keyboard another time. I really did want something more like that. Right now I have a specific reason for wanting to try a cordless combo to eliminate USB connections. I think this older keyboard and mouse don't get along well on the USB bus. (even my "new" keyboard, that big letter one is very old... USB 2 days)

This motherboard is just weird. I don't have a lot of problems (really this is the last thing that's pissing me off... my input devices). For starters, there are ONLY USB 3 ports, the USB 2 ports are essentially just pinned so that USB 3 doesn't work, it's still EHCI and associated protocol parameters etc. I don't even see the point of doing that, a USB device that doesn't work on a USB 3 port isn't going to work just because you use a USB 2 cable (which is essentially the same thing they are doing with those ports). It's the communications :lol:

P.S. It doesn't speak for feel, but that keyboard looks really fucking nice, full size and all (and the black housing doesn't hurt of course). Part of my problem with most keyboards IS the size. I'm forever hitting Caps Lock and Tab instead of keys. I don't look at my hands when I type, I look at the screen.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Well I got it about 2 pm, but I just have them charging now. USB C connectors. I'm using phone chargers. It did come with a USB to USB-C connector for charging from a PC, but fuck that. I don't use my computer as a battery charger, ever... or use it to power a coffee warmer (I had a customer who made me wonderful coffee when I came, and she'd always set it on that USB warmer. I did opine, but if she enjoys it... until it causes a problem I can't say I told you so)

Right now they both need charging, but I'll be able to charge the keyboard and mouse at different times. I have one charger plugged in here, and one over where I always charge my phone. But I don't charge the phone that often, so that one can be used to charge the mouse if I need both.

This might suck. I'll know if they are low on charge when there is lag :lol:

The mouse, I'll be able to turn off the LED's. The keyboard, it's mandatory. You can't see the characters on the keys without it. Things I don't think of when ordering... lol
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Hah... best mouse LED control I've ever seen. The on/off switch has 3 positions... off in the middle, switch up is on, switch down is on with LEDs. No button press combos and stored bits to keep the LEDs off.

The mouse is weighty and nice to control, though the cursor speed seems a little slower than I'm used to, and the mouse itself doesn't have its own DPI switch. At least, in XFCE so far... I'm going to have to see how it is in X11 itself first (icewm). If I have to change it, I'll do it in an xorg.conf.d directive.

Mouse scroll wheel is notched, not as stiff as my old MSI mouse, but it won't roll when middle clicked.

Jury is out on the keyboard. It's not horrible, but it is small and I really hate relying on back-lit LED colours to be able to see my keys. If it was a full sized keyboard being able to see them wouldn't be as important. I already like the key press better than that big letter keyboard.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Hahahah! These devices have rebranded MSI Mystic Light guts

Code: Select all

[    0.979621] usb 1-12: New USB device found, idVendor=1462, idProduct=7d36, bcdDevice= 0.01
[    0.979624] usb 1-12: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[    0.979624] usb 1-12: Product: MYSTIC LIGHT 
[    0.979625] usb 1-12: Manufacturer: MSI
[    0.979625] usb 1-12: SerialNumber: A02021081302
The receiver shows up messily as a 4 port USB 2 hub with a bunch of silly devices

input: 2.4G Mouse Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.1/0003:1EA7:0169.0002/input/input15

That's a new invention, the mouse keyboard :lol:
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

The reason I can't change the DPI mode on the mouse is because I'd have to have it in "Office Mode" and then button 6 is the DPI setting (button below scroll wheel) but it needs their mouse control software for this.

I don't know, I'm not having any luck with the mouse pointer (not responding to xinput directives... not even the sliders in XFCE... DPI is too low I think) so I think this might be going back. I hate to go through that trouble, but they should have thought this product out better. I'm just going to say this is a crap Chinese product, with rebranded components and crippled functionality.

The fucking hardware is in the wrong mode, there is no X11 facility that can help with that.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Well, that didn't last the night. I screwed around and nothing I could do would affect the mouse acceleration, so I resigned myself to just live with it. After all, it was only a little slower than I was used to with the device's defaults. I was already used to it.

That keyboard was another matter, it was turning itself off immediately in my games. I'd press a key, nothing, press another key and it would come back. Then it would shut off again. The keyboard itself must have thought it was getting no input (that's an internal battery saving thing).

I have it all packed up in the box, I'll do a return on Monday.

Meanwhile I'm back to that actual "MSI Mystic Light" mouse (USB corded)

[ 1.313405] usb 1-12: New USB device found, idVendor=1462, idProduct=7d36, bcdDevice= 0.01
[ 1.313442] usb 1-12: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1.313448] usb 1-12: Product: MYSTIC LIGHT
[ 1.313452] usb 1-12: Manufacturer: MSI
[ 1.313455] usb 1-12: SerialNumber: A02021081302

It's the very same mouse circuitry, just different physical details like the optical diode type (red vs. invisible IR) and lack of a DPI setting right on the device in the RedThunder branded mouse... software knobs only. The buttons are configured by software too. That's a shit sandwich, identifying as that vendor and device ID and not actually having the same functionality. Typical quality of life-cheapening Chinese behaviour.

That mouse is getting a bit old, buttons starting to wear out and stuff. I have always loved it. It's also causing latency messages at times (though that in itself isn't a problem, there's just that horrid firmware/driver crash I was talking about sometimes after certain triggers that I don't know is related or not)

But... I took my old IBM clickety clack keyboard back from the old computer again. I have it on the converter dongle here again. So far, it hasn't missed a keystroke and I've been hammering on the keys with glee, able to actually type this fast again.

I will be sending that RedChunder set back for refund... perhaps I will just buy a new MSI mouse and see if I can just keep using my IBM keyboard without any glitches.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

At least now you know :)
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

This (older, corded) "MSI Mystic Light" (MSI GM20 Elite) mouse does respond to mouse acceleration, with the mouse in the right DPI mode. Yesterday's was simply too low to be in range. You have to program the correct device though.

Look at these silly fucking devices (it was sillier with the cordless receiver yesterday... though similar crap with this CHESEN converter thing)

Code: Select all

[grogan@nicetry ~]$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ CHESEN PS2 to USB Converter Mouse       	id=10	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ MSI MSI GM20 Elite  Mouse               	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ MSI MSI GM20 Elite  Keyboard            	id=14	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ MSI MSI GM20 Elite                      	id=15	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ CHESEN PS2 to USB Converter             	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ CHESEN PS2 to USB Converter System Control	id=11	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ CHESEN PS2 to USB Converter Consumer Control	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ MSI MSI GM20 Elite  Keyboard            	id=16	[slave  keyboard (3)]
MSI MSI GM20 Elite (id 15) is the actual slave device that is the mouse. xinput doesn't have a clue what those internal devices are. (The PS/2 converter has it pretty confused lol). I knew I had the right device yesterday, (id11 it was for me) because xinput would fail to apply certain properties to others. With the right device, they were not affecting pointer acceleration, but they were valid properties.

XFCE gets this wrong, every time you open the Mouse and Touchpad configuration. It chooses CHESEN PS2 to USB Converter Mouse which is wrong, there's nothing connected. The slider would do nothing. Change it to MSI MSI GM20 Elite (only) and the slider works. Exit out and your mouse setting stays, but go back in and the dialog has the wrong device selected and thus, shows the wrong slider position etc. and you have to choose the correct device. It just so happens that the defaults with this mouse's current DPI mode are perfect, so I'd never even gone in there.

No wonder people have input device problems with the way these silly devices advertise. It's because the logic boards have unused shit on them, and the devices behave like "USB hubs" with slave devices.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Damn, something that happened to me here is that I fell for a knock-off product. I thought I vaguely recognized the name RedThunder but it's Redragon they are mimicking.

Now though, everybody can fuck off. I'll not take a chance on Red "anything". If it has the word "gaming" in it, I'm going to avoid it because it could have gimmicks I can't work with.

Sigh... I'm leaning towards just ordering a Logitech combo. I haven't decided yet. Ironically I'm not having any trouble right now, I've got my old IBM clickey clack on the PS/2 converter and the old MSI mouse and haven't had any latency or button/key presses that don't register etc. However, I feel bad about returning things for refund (especially when they aren't necessarily "defective", just by design) and I like to purchase something at the same store to replace it when I do. I have my own filters and I'm the one I have to answer to and the older I get, the more that is. If the devil is good to me, I won't cheat even him. I'll put it another way, Amazon has redeemed themselves above "fair game" status, to me. I can't deny the human cost of their MO, but they certainly are pro-consumer. Valve is similar... they make their money on the backs of game studios and publishers and can set their own policies because of their massive sales clout... yet they are our champions.

P.S. Fuck... now that I just said that, I pressed the backspace key and the keystroke didn't register, and the scroll or numlock blinked (didn't see which light it was for sure, but any of those are a mile away from Backspace... I didn't miss. And it only blinked). THAT kind of shit is what caused me to stop using this keyboard with the converter dongle in the first place.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

I ordered this:

Logitech MK540 Advanced Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo for Windows, 2.4 GHz Unifying USB-Receiver, Multimedia Hotkeys, 3-Year Battery Life, for PC, Laptop
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0CBPNWCVS/

It's pretty plain jane... should be fine.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Michael_horatio »

That looks nice. Good palm rest, nice tilt legs. Looks like good solid Logitech quality. I bet it will be good. I've had several Logitech mice and keyboards with never any problems.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

This is probably the first Logitech keyboard I've had, I'm not a fan of any keyboard besides my IBM :mrgreen:

I'm also not a fan of cordless keyboard and mouse sets, but... reasons. (and one I didn't mention is wanting an air gap... horrendous static here)

However, I've not found their mice to last very long anymore. In the 90's and early 2000's, you couldn't kill them. Something always wears out, especially the scroll wheels. Oh well, it has to be longer than one day (piss me off and it won't last even that lol)

There are Logitech mice upstairs and they both have notched scroll wheels (but they aren't very new). I'm a gonna be pissed if this one doesn't.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

Looks good, except for the Windows logo, but you can fix that with a penguin sticker :)

I have a lot of Logitech keyboards but they're all corded. Some are very old, PS2 era. I haven't had one die on me yet, but the lettering on the keys seems to wear off fast, particularly the WASD keys. I've had a number of their mice die.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Well, the keyboard and mouse arrived in its own box (not a shipping carton), was easy to slide the whole thing out from the narrow end (I actually hate unpacking cartons so the less of it the better lol). Set up could not have been easier... pull plastic tabs to complete battery connections (came with 2 AA in keyboard, and 1 AA in mouse) and plug the receiver in.

Both the keyboard and mouse are a bit too small for me, but I'll just have to get used to them. The keyboard isn't horrible to type on, but it's fairly shallow stroked and doesn't have a lot of feedback. I should be able to get used to it though.

The scroll wheel on the mouse is good (notched, doesn't roll when middle clicked)

While these receivers (and that Chesen USB to PS/2 adapter) always have a bunch of confusing provisions on them, this one is a lot saner and doesn't confuse input detection systems (i.e. steam input was mis-programming that RedChunder keyboard I sent back)

Code: Select all

[grogan@nicetry ~]$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver Mouse             	id=10	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver Consumer Control  	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                   	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Logitech USB Receiver System Control    	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Logitech USB Receiver Consumer Control  	id=13	[slave  keyboard (3)]
Now there is something fuct here... one of those "Power Buttons" is actually the system's power button for ACPI shutdown (that's an input device). The trick is, I don't know which, from that (but it doesn't matter, it is what it is... press one of them never). Xinput (library) is not very smart to put something like that in a separate device tree, it's an abstraction.

It doesn't matter if you have just a cordless mouse too, it's going to be the same receiver with vestigial devices. The last time I had a Logitech cordless mouse I was still gaming in Windows. In both Windows 10 and Windows 7, I had to disable the "Consumer Control" devices in device manager, or I had jerky performance in some older games. Odd, but true. It was I guess causing the mouse to be mis-programmed and causing sync issues in the games.

At least on Linux you don't get that logitech updater service (can't remember the name) that loads as a mouse driver device. I used to disable that in device manager too if Logitech shitware was installed (Windows update would pull that in too)

Anyway, "Mouse and Touchpad" settings in XFCE gets the device correct this time, and the mouse acceleration slider works. But only to a point, the mouse just does not have the acceleration capabilities. It is a low DPI device and properties are simply ignored by xinput. It programs them differently. I can slow it right down, but anything above acceleration factor 7 (default 5 which was a bit too slow) with the slider has no further effect on the pointer. XFCE is kind of dumb that way too, it overrides anything it configures (such that the real settings have no effect). It takes over the mouse settings, but then doesn't give you the means to set other things like acceleration thresholds. For example if you do image editing where you select by hand, you want an acceleration threshold so acceleration doesn't kick in until you have moved a number of pixels (e.g. 4) for precision.

Note: XFCE would present an acceleration threshold slider for a high DPI device. That's an ignored property. If I change the mouse device to the "Consumer Control" pointer device (id=11), I have different acceleration controls... for a high DPI device. However, it's not the actual device it's just part of the receiver's facility... it COULD be a high DPI mouse model the receiver is to be programmed for, they just re-use chips). This is basically the same issue as that RedChunder mouse that was in a lower DPI mode by default, with only software control overrides. This mouse is only a low DPI device, though.

I'm going to have to go to IceWM now (plain jane window manager... that's where I play games) to test anything else. Maybe I can get the mouse working more nicely there, using the xinput utility, prepending commands in ~/.xinitrc
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Ahh, I found a way to make it "act" like a higher DPI device with respect to speed. I'm not changing the acceleration properties, but the X and Y coordinates. I'm giving it a higher range, thus transforming it to move more pixels. I played with the values corresponding to X and Y coordinates and this is where I ended up, with mouse pointer speed to my liking. I don't know how this will affect precision in theory, but in practice I'm sure it's fine and it can be changed on the fly at any instant for something like the photo editing selection example. This is probably what Windows does with these devices too (messes with relative coordinates), because in Windows you can usually make your pointer too fast with Windows mouse settings.

Anyway, for me, I just have to execute this. In my .xinitrc for icewm (can just prepend and forget about it) and somewhere in script for XFCE (which I start with its own startxfce4 script, which itself can run xinit depending on how you run it)

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 10 "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 2.5 0 0 0 2.5 0 0 0 1
That's xinput set-prop for device ID 10, from the output of the xinput utility (shown in above post). I could also use the name of the device in quotes "Logitech USB Receiver Mouse". I think, though I'm not sure, I could also use the property number 171 instead of the name of the property in quotes. While easier, I don't care to, it's less human readable, so I won't find out.

How did I get this? From:

Code: Select all

[grogan@nicetry ~]$ xinput --list-props 10
Device 'Logitech USB Receiver Mouse':
	Device Enabled (169):	1
	Coordinate Transformation Matrix (171):	1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
...
...
I'm increasing my X and Y coordinates by a factor of 2.5. I like a fast pointer, with less hand movement.

Do I understand how those matrices work? Fuck no (not yet) just the X and Y transforms :-)
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

See... this is why I never want to let go of old school X11

~/.xinitrc

Code: Select all

export ICEAUTHORITY=/home/grogan/.ICEauthority
xrandr --rate 180
xinput set-prop 10 "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 2.5 0 0 0 2.5 0 0 0 1
# exec starttde
# exec start-lumina-desktop
# exec startxfce4
exec icewm-session
Do what you bloody well want, before xinit starts your client when using "startx". As you can see I could also start xfce4 like that, but I prefer to separate those so I'm not having to edit that file to switch between it and icewm.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Oh man, does XFCE ever suck a basket of smouldering dicks... coordinate transforms break XFCE's desktop switching at screen edges, and makes me lose my mouse cursor until they are set back to 1:1. It also breaks thresholds like edge resistance and drag and drop activation.

I've had it with this presumptuous desktop environment. It overrides my font settings (takes away nice fontconfig defaults I have in /etc/fonts and I have to use its rendering settings), overrides my input device control, would override more if I didn't uninstall things like xfce4-power-manager etc. and it would enforce display settings too if anything other than defaults (e.g. the client would do 1920x1080@60 Hz with RandR, if I didn't configure it there... that's not really a problem though)

I want something a little more functional for desktop use than a simple window manager (I like XFCE's compositor... does only what I need and doesn't get in the way... vsync control is necessary for desktop use now, so I need something) but not something that's going to stuff up my colon like Plasma...
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Something good about this cordless keyboard, unlike that other dumbass thing I bought... when the keyboard's power saving functions turn itself off, when you press a key to use it, the keyboard's standby function passes the keystroke and it registers... so you don't miss a stroke.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

Mate desktop has been a good general purpose DE once tweaked the way I like my desktop configured. It's been a good compromise for gaming, between general functionality and compatibility with gaming, I haven't had any significant focus issues like I used to have with Plasma, though the mouse can occasionally escape to my 2nd screen but that seldom happens and when it has it has been easy to recover it.It also has a compositor that has never caused me any stability issues unlike Plasma's.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

I've actually been thinking of Mate, because it has a mild, software driven compositor like XFCE. My mouse speed is OK in XFCE, I can work with it, but it pisses me off that XFCE has to control everything the way it does. That XY transform is perfect for a plain jane X11 window manager like icewm AND my games. I did cut it down to 2.0 from 2.5 though, for it was really a bit too much after I got using it for a while. No need for decimal places with whole numbers.

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 10 "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1
I might try mate today, but the catch is that it's going to step all over my GTK environment. I'll just install the Arch "mate" package meta, not mate-extra to get away from crap like power managers and stuff.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

No, Mate is out because it's going to install some detestable dependencies that I don't like. The show stoppers are

gvfs packages
udisks2 and related libraries (e.g. all that libblockdev bollocks)

I was going to give it a try (backed up my whole home directory so I can restore any config file it steps on) but when I realized that, I bitchslapped myself for even thinking about it. If those things are installed, applications will use them (e.g. Steam, Lutris will use gvfsd for file access protocols and GTK dialogs will have desktop folders like Trash, Recent etc.) and also, I do NOT want file managers and shit automatically mounting volumes. I actually hate that, because of the stupid way they do it. (/run/user/1000/shit/crap/numeric string/bollocks instead of /storage or /mnt/thumbdrive etc.)

Hatred :x
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Another alternative is to use a standalone compositor for X11. Compton hasn't seen a lick of code in several years, but there's a modern fork, Picom, and Arch even carries it.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Picom

Then I could use whatever old school window managers I like. I could go back to using TDE for non-gaming use (has focus issues). You can just start and stop those kinds of compositors any time too (it has nothing to do with your window manager). Run the program however, manually or autostart.
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Grogan
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Hah, fuck... I installed Picom and hadn't even tried it yet. I was going to do a before and after, with the telltale jerky window dragging behaviour in IceWM but that isn't happening anymore. That was all mouse sync problems, the underlying problem with that MSI mouse and possible keyboard issues on the bus. I'll bet that mouse was all of what was pissing me off.

I just manually started picom and it didn't affect window dragging now that I'm not having that problem, but it did overlay some effects, for example my IceWM taskbar now fades in and out from auto-hide and also desktop switching has fade-out transitions. I don't really want that (or this running at all with IceWM for gaming), but it shows that it's working as intended. Default picom config, I haven't changed anything yet. vsync is "true" and that's really the only thing I'm looking for here. I can turn off any effects in a ~/.config/picom.conf

Killed the program and it's all gone, the window manager doesn't notice.

I probably don't really need compositing in window managers now but it couldn't be easier than that if I do. It's real accelerated GL compositing too, not just software.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

I just discovered something very unexpected. I wanted to see if the Picom compositor worked with TDE/Trinity, since it only has a software compositor. I have TDE's compositor and all those effects turned off, because I had it configured for light weight use. (This carried over from the old rig, home directory copied, /opt/trinity and /opt/tqt3 and /usr/local copied... this was compiled and configured years ago, it's only been broken once, needing a recompile of some parts, in all the years I've had it)

I went to start picom and it refused, saying another composition manager was already running. Yep, fade outs and smooth animations in Trinity even though I have all that shit disabled. OK, WHAT compositor is it running... what the Hell.

It is automatically launching picom because it's present. There's no option for it, it just does it. WHAT? I just don't understand how anybody could think that's OK.

P.S. OH, shit, it's not TDE doing it. I didn't know that the picom package was going to drop a file in the global /etc/xdg/autostart (The Arch writeup didn't say so... it showed how to manually start it or to add it to your session). Anything that processes that is going to load picom (icewm wouldn't process that). I consider that pretty bad behaviour. Not anymore it isn't.

I think I'm going to use TDE now, I already have it all set up, and with this picom it seems really good, and it has zero problems with my mouse XY transform. I have always loved it, I just got away from it on Manjaroo when I started having focus problems in games. Time to see about upgrading TDE. I hope they haven't ruined it.
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Grogan »

Well, I need different .xinitrc files for both clients now, for starting icewm and tde, and only the tde one gets "picom &" prepended before exec'ing the client. Since XFCE only does its own thing, it can still be started with startxfce4 directly and doesn't use that environment anyway. The startx script lets you specify a client (e.g. icewm-session, starttde) instead of using .xinitrc but it doesn't let you specify an alternate .xinitrc. So that relegates me to editing files every time, or... writing my own little "session manager" to handle the .xinitrc files :mrgreen:

Code: Select all

#! /bin/bash

cd $HOME

while true; do
read -p "Which to start?
a) IceWM
b) Trinity Desktop
c) XFCE
d) abort
---> " abcd
case $abcd in
        [aA]) echo "Starting IceWM...";
               ln -sf .xinitrc-icewm .xinitrc;
               startx;
               break;;
        [bB]) echo "Starting TDE...";
               ln -sf .xinitrc-tde .xinitrc;
               startx;
               break;;
        [cC]) echo "Starting XFCE...";
               startxfce4;
               break;;
        [dD]) echo "I changed my mind...";
               break;;
           *) echo "You chose... poorly. Enter a, b, c or d to abort";;
esac
done

exit 0
(bonus points if you remember what movie I took the error message from :lol: )

P.S. Using ctrl-c to abort isn't classy... so I gave it an out, to break the loop if I run the script and decide I forgot to do something at console. Also cosmetic changes (line breaks and a bit of an arrow prompt)
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Zema Bus
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Re: keyboard and mouse combo

Post by Zema Bus »

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade :)
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