[SEMI-SOLVED] Has this keyboard (Fnatic ministreak silent red) worked for you on FreeBSD?

S

scottro

I had bought this keyboard just before Covid from Amazon. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/fnatic...b-back-lighting-black/6354338.p?skuId=6354338

(Yeah, that' s Bestbuy, but whatever). Anyway, when I got it, I liked it but it didn't work on my FreeBSD tower. (It did work with my CentOS tower, those were the only two that I tried).
I don't remember if I tried rebooting or not. So, I returned it and wound up order a Ducky from mechanicalkeyboards.com but now, that is going to take until mid-June. So I'm wondering if anyone has used this with FreeBSD successfully. It seems that I can get it much more quickly than the Ducky. I'm not positive I'll get it if someone does answer this positively, but I'm thinking of it.
 
I wrote the same thing a while ago: There are some "gamer" keyboards that have extensive extra functionality, like turning on cool lights, and programming keys for extra key sequences. Some of them need special drivers (software you download for Windows), and if you try to use them without that software, they don't even work at all: the Windows software turns the keyboard into a special mode where it doesn't act like a normal keyboard at all. Supposedly (heard this second hand) it helps to disconnect the keyboard from USB and reconnect it; when it gets powered up, it begins by being a normal keyboard, until the special software reconfigures it.
 
Honestly, that is to be expected, from an OS that has (a) fewer users, and fewer developers, and (b) a user and developer base that is more targeted towards server as opposed to desktop, and therefore less likely to care about things like keyboards.
 
I avoid Corsair keyboards even for Windows. The last one I had worked fine during the BIOS part of booting, but would stop working as soon as you got a desktop on Windows 7. It required a driver that's only available bundled with bloatware to create rainbow effects and some such nonsense. It will be the last Corsair keyboard I ever buy. My Logitech G413 Carbon works fine on Freebsd as evidenced by this post.
 
Well, not that I'm a real keyboard freak, but trying various mechanical keyboards, many designed for gaming, but most having switches too loud for my wife's comfort, I've decided to wait for the Ducky one to get back in stock. Thanks xtremae, I hadn't really thought that something as basic as a keyboard, even a gaming keyboard, would have windows only stuff. But all of the other gaming keyboards I've used with FreeBSD have been fine.
 
scottro said:
Well, not that I'm a real keyboard freak, but trying various mechanical keyboards, many designed for gaming, but most having switches too loud for my wife's comfort, I've decided to wait for the Ducky one to get back in stock. Thanks xtremae, I hadn't really thought that something as basic as a keyboard, even a gaming keyboard, would have windows only stuff. But all of the other gaming keyboards I've used with FreeBSD have been fine.
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Never used them but you may want to have a look on WASD Keyboards.
 
Thanks, but I've actually got my keyboard picked out. It's a Ducky--in response to another thread on the forums I'd tried their 60% size which was too small for me, but found a TKL (10 key less) that I like. I just have to wait a bit as it's getting shipped from overseas.
 
I'm going to mark this as semi-solved. Apparently no one who saw this thread has used this keyboard, but I'm getting a different keyboard anyway, though I have to wait.
 
scottro said:
I've actually got my keyboard picked out. It's a Ducky […] found a TKL (10 key less) that I like.
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Beside of my favorite keyboard I have a Ducky "ONE 2 TKL Skyline" (with MX-Silver switches and german layout) - works out of the box.
 
Technically my custom Varmilo keyboard (single color LED) should be the same. I can switch the LEDs on, but: Playing around with them or switching them of again results ~15 seconds later in a frozen X11 session. So after such a change I have to reboot (the new LED settings are preserved and X11 works), and so far I didn't find a reason why. But: To me that LED stuff is just a "nice to have" and a cool thing to play around; A shining keyboard turns out not to be really ergonomical, but having white keycaps in low light environments … that's something I don't want to miss. So, as the LEDs are always off I wouldn't order them again, even if X11 works fine without a reboot.
 
That sounds annoying. But while I usually play with the lights for a day or so, eventually, I leave them. Despite being an old grouch, something in me likes that different colored RGB lighting, though I'm embarrassed to admit it. :) (So, I admit it on a public forum, but that's alright, I think there are a few folks here that I know in real life but they know I'm immature.)
 
Plug in your keyboard, then type dmesg | tail. That gives you a clue what's going on.

I see some corsair keyboard bugzillas, but they were all closed/fixed recently.

Bug List

bugs.freebsd.org bugs.freebsd.org
 
Elazar said:
Plug in your keyboard, then type dmesg | tail. That gives you a clue what's going on.
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Cool, plugging it out and in again results in a completely unusable keyboard: Typing a single char like "d" results in three weird chars in my already opened xterm like ";;5". After a few seconds the X server crashes (so I still haven't got the output of dmesg), and I'm on the classic textbased login and can do: nothing. A few seconds later my computer reboots. Won't try that again. This LED stuff is really not important to me.
 
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