2008-10-16, 05:09
So I decided to go all super spendy and get the rediculously expensive Logitech Dinovo Edge Keyboard. Its a keyboard. It cost me like $160 USD. Yes, thats rediculous. But tech toys are pretty much the only thing I spend money on, so screw it!
Anyways, one of the reasons this keyboard has been of interest to HTPC users is that its got some nice extra functionality. The key feature for me is it has a "TouchDisc" that works roughly like a laptop's touchpad function. A bit of Googling found some old posts in forums about getting it to work under Ubuntu 7. It was do-able but required some tricks.
I'm happy to report that I'm running Kubuntu 8.4 i386 (x86) and all I did was plug it in. The TouchDisc works properly, I just had to up the mouse speed a bit to get it working nicely. By default its I guess less sensitive than the optical mouse I was using previously. Not really a surprise since my last mouse was a Razer Diamondback "gaming mouse", which was soooper sensitive and had to be backed way way down.
So basically if you're using the Dinovo Edge on a normal system it should be seriously as dumb as "plug it in". I haven't tested a lot of the extra stuff like the zoom buttons and whatnot simply because I have no idea how to use them. The normal keyboard stuff works, the TouchDisc works as a mouse pointing device, and the crazy Star Trek style "slide your finger on it" volume control works to control the master volume in KDE. Also the dedicated mute button works as well. So thats like 90% of the functionality working with zero config out of the box, and 100% of the functionality that I "need".
Just a word on build quality, this keyboard is really really nice. I don't know if its honestly worth the money, but it IS one of the nicest keyboards I've had. The fact that the stand / charger looks nice and can be in a physically seperate location from the computer makes it very attractive as a living room computing solution.
Hope this post helps some people in the future
Anyways, one of the reasons this keyboard has been of interest to HTPC users is that its got some nice extra functionality. The key feature for me is it has a "TouchDisc" that works roughly like a laptop's touchpad function. A bit of Googling found some old posts in forums about getting it to work under Ubuntu 7. It was do-able but required some tricks.
I'm happy to report that I'm running Kubuntu 8.4 i386 (x86) and all I did was plug it in. The TouchDisc works properly, I just had to up the mouse speed a bit to get it working nicely. By default its I guess less sensitive than the optical mouse I was using previously. Not really a surprise since my last mouse was a Razer Diamondback "gaming mouse", which was soooper sensitive and had to be backed way way down.
So basically if you're using the Dinovo Edge on a normal system it should be seriously as dumb as "plug it in". I haven't tested a lot of the extra stuff like the zoom buttons and whatnot simply because I have no idea how to use them. The normal keyboard stuff works, the TouchDisc works as a mouse pointing device, and the crazy Star Trek style "slide your finger on it" volume control works to control the master volume in KDE. Also the dedicated mute button works as well. So thats like 90% of the functionality working with zero config out of the box, and 100% of the functionality that I "need".
Just a word on build quality, this keyboard is really really nice. I don't know if its honestly worth the money, but it IS one of the nicest keyboards I've had. The fact that the stand / charger looks nice and can be in a physically seperate location from the computer makes it very attractive as a living room computing solution.
Hope this post helps some people in the future
