Making The Switch To Dvorak

[Kowood]

So, I ripped apart an old keyboard and made it a Dvorak. I want to get to know how to use it, so first off, are there any good typing teachers for Linux? LIke those little games, or something....And second...What's the bootcode in Knoppix (keyboard=XX) for Dvorak?

[jjmac]

Not sure what a Dvorak is :) ....

But ..., i taught myself to type by taking a piece of paper and tracing out the keys from a keyboard on to it. Then i tapped it to an old file archive cover. The ones that use ring binding.

Then i would just tap things out on that. Make up stories etc.

It worked for me :)



jm

[knewbix]

I also have no idea what a Dvorak keyboard is. I gather it just has the keys in a different order. Have you guys seen those new keyboards with no writing on the keys? Seems stupid at first but eventually you HAVE TO learn the keys. I think it would help a lot to learn typing. (if this is your goal). Otherwise you can't type! Makes sense to me! :)

[jjmac]

(grin)

You mean like leaning to read with a book that just has blank pages ...

hehe

jm

[Kowood]

I know how to type well on QWERTY....I just wanna switch to Dvorak..........http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

[gildedlink]

http://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/

It says somewhere in there that it supports lessons for dvorak and that it can be compiled in linux. Look around.

[Cuddles]

Not sure what a Dvorak is :) ....

But ..., i taught myself to type by taking a piece of paper and tracing out the keys from a keyboard on to it. Then i tapped it to an old file archive cover. The ones that use ring binding.

Then i would just tap things out on that. Make up stories etc.

It worked for me :)



jm

I also have no idea what a Dvorak keyboard is. I gather it just has the keys in a different order. Have you guys seen those new keyboards with no writing on the keys? Seems stupid at first but eventually you HAVE TO learn the keys. I think it would help a lot to learn typing. (if this is your goal). Otherwise you can't type! Makes sense to me! Smile
OMG - I cant believe no one knows what a DVorak keyboard is - knewbix is closest with the correct answer, though :)

QWERTY is the usualy STANDARD keyboard everyone knows, it stands for the placement of the keys, and hence, the scanning of them as well... QWERTY was designed way back in the old days of mechanical typewriters. The placement of the keys was done, because since a mechanical mechanism had to move the keys, to strike the paper, the keys were placed, to slow down a typest, so that for each word a person would type, would ALMOST require both hands to complete the word. i.e. to type the word: something - it require s, e, t, and g from the left hand, and o, m, h, i, and n from the right hand. Mr. Dvorak designed a new thinking keyboard, at which, the keys MOST used were more in-line with the ¨home row¨, and thus, when a person learned that key setup, they increased there key-strokes per minute in almost hundereds times faster.

( PS - Not rippin on your guys here, just kind of surprised no one knew what it was [giggle] )

Kowood, my best guess here, is, if you cant find a key-map for the keys already... You should be able to move the keys around ( physically ), and modify an already existing key-map to change what keys represent what scan codes (best guess here)

I honestly cant imagine that a key-map doesnt already exist for it, have you googled ? As far as a typing tester, not quite sure on that one either. They have to exist, even though Dvorak has almost dissappeared from main-stream. ( it used to be a big thing, about 5 to 10 years ago, I know )

Not sure if I helped Kowood, but, I tried :D
Ms. Cuddles

[Markus]

I don't know of a cheat for loading dvorak but once booted you can try: loadkeys dvorak-classic.kmap.gz
Just choose one of these:
markus@mrk-fujibox:~$ ll /usr/share/keymaps/i386/dvorak
total 32
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 145 Feb 15 20:13 ANSI-dvorak.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2692 Feb 15 20:13 dvorak-classic.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1257 Feb 15 20:13 dvorak-fr.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1205 Feb 15 20:13 dvorak-l.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1202 Feb 15 20:13 dvorak-r.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 818 Feb 15 20:13 dvorak.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 717 Feb 15 20:13 mac-usb-dvorak.kmap.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2107 Feb 15 20:13 pc-dvorak-latin1.kmap.gz

A more permanent approach would be install-keymap instead of loadkeys.

[jjmac]

Cuddles wrote:
>>
( PS - Not rippin on your guys here, just kind of surprised no one knew what it was [giggle] )
>>

Thats known (grin), about time the qwerty was fixed too. The little finger on my left hand is usually in a permant state of cramp (grin)

Those "A" and "S" keys, along with the "E" key ... are in such a bad location ...

>>
even though Dvorak has almost dissappeared from main-stream
>>

I wonder why ... it sounds like a great idea to me.


jm

[Cuddles]

I wonder why ... it sounds like a great idea to me.

It was a good idea. A keyboard designed for speed, efficientcy [major spelling error there], and lastly, throwing out the whole bad layout of QWERTY to go with something that was revolutionary ( hmmm, sounds like Linux, and the OS market ).

I think the problem was, it was radically different, it was non-standard, and took some getting used to... Touch typists of QWERTY, had to relearn a completely different key setup, etc... Even if the person did learn Dvorak, they had to find, or use, computer keyboards that had one of these keyboards. This last part, probably, got some flack from the staunch ( we always did it this way, why change now ) business people in power. What peobably happened was, managers felt the speed of a new keyboard wasnt enough to sell them on buying these ¨special¨ keyboards, because no one else in the office could use them. ( this also included those managers. ) Imagine, a manager, in a office, with all Dvorak keyboards, and the manager cant use one...

It might not have ¨taken off¨ because of the above (theories), or, it could just be that, there already existed a ¨standard¨, everyone knew the keyboard layout, no one was any more ¨special¨ than anyone else, this keyboard layout was easily accessable ( it could be purchased anywhere ), and lastly, who cares if it is outdated, who cares if it is slow, and who wanted to re-learn something new. ( now this sounds a lot like Linux vs. Windows )

I would think that Dvorak is still, kind of, still going, with people who use the keyboard, walking around with there ¨personal¨ Dvorak keyboard, and when they get to a work site, they just unplug the ¨standard¨ keyboard, and replace it with there own Dvorak. ( kind of what people are doing with the Knoppix LiveCD, in a way )

Oh well... Havent heard much ¨press¨ on it, not as much as, say, when it came out, I was kind of surprised when Kowood mentioned it -=- I seriously thought it had ¨died off¨ completely.

Ms. Cuddles

[jjmac]

Yes, i think all that would have been involved to degrees. Where funny critters us humans, are we not :)

I haven't experimented with keymaps before, but Markus' idea above seems interesting. And as i found the Dorvak keymaps installed on my system under,

/usr/share/keymaps/i386/dvorak

It's probably worth a try. If it's just a matter of remapping the keycodes, then it would seem any keyboard could be used.

Relabeling the keys would be trivial .

The mention of a Dorvak keyboard makes me think i might be missing something there though (grin). No problem ... I suppose an incremental remapping may be best. Just to hopefully avoid a total freeze. Dorvak does sound like a good idea, none the less.



jm