Difference between revisions of "Logitech diNovo Mini"

Revision as of 05:24, 5 March 2009

The Logitech diNovo Mini is a palm-sized keyboard directly targeted at Home Theater PC users. It is a bluetooth keyboard that incorporates a full QWERTY layout with a touch-pad mouse.

Ubuntu 8.10 Update

According to the Ubuntu 8.10 release notes the keyboard driver has undergone extensive modifications, and previous configurations with xmodmap will need to be changed.

The crux of the changes (as far as the author can tell) is that now the keyboard mapping is decided by XWindows on the fly, maybe with the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) putting it's 2-cents worth in.

Marc Randolph suggested on the MythTV Mailing list:

• The X.Org configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) still has InputDevice entries for the mouse and keyboard, but they are ignored now because input-hotplug is used. The keyboard settings now come from /etc/default/console-setup; to change them please use sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup. After that, HAL and X need to be restarted (e.g., by rebooting your system).

So, with the keyboard manually set to "Logitech diNovo" (there is no "Logitech diNovo Mini" option), all the previously good keycodes are changed, and some of the keys do not generate a scan code at all.

The following keycodes provide a partial solution:

 keycode 174 = Escape
 keycode 173 = Left
 keycode 171 = Right
 keycode 172 = P
 keycode 175 = R

The author will provide a more thorough approach once it becomes known to him. Mythbuntu 8.10 no longer automatically calls xmodmap, so it has to be configured to run manually. The XFCE documentation states that: "All programs (or symbolic links to programs) in ~/Desktop/Autostart/ will be run on startup". So this might be an easy way to call xmodmap.

Media Buttons

The keyboard includes a row of extra buttons along the top, plus some alternate blue function buttons. At the time of writing (2008-08-22) these buttons are not natively supported under Mythbuntu Linux or MythTV. However it's possible to re-map these keys to something useful for MythTV using xmodmap.

The program xmodmap takes a plain text file of key-codes (determined with the xev program), and the keystroke this code should generate.

 ! DiNovo Mini Keyboard Mappings for MythTV
 !
 !     Volume Down:   keycode 174    XF86AudioLowerVolume
 !     Volume Up:     keycode 176    XF86AudioRaiseVolume
 !     Mute:          keycode 160    XF86AudioMute
 !     Record:        keycode 177    XF86AudioRecord
 !     Skip Left:     keycode 144    XF86AudioPrev
 !     Skip Right:    keycode 153    XF86AudioNext
 !     Stop:          keycode 164    XF86AudioStop
 !     Play/Pause:    keycode 162    XF86AudioPlay
 !     Back:          keycode 22  ?? Backspace
 !     --------------------------
 !     Music:         keycode 129    XF86Music
 !     Browser:       keycode 178    XF86WWW
 !     Power:         keycode 223    XF86Sleep
 !
 keycode 174 = F10
 keycode 176 = F11
 keycode 160 = F9
 keycode 177 = R
 keycode 144 = Left
 keycode 153 = Right
 keycode 164 = Escape
 keycode 162 = P
 keycode 129 = XF86Music
 keycode 178 = XF86WWW
 keycode 223 = XF86Sleep

(Note: The blue alt-keys (Music, Browser, Power) are not mapped to anything useful in MythTV, this is left as an exercise for the reader!)

Save the above to a file named .Xmodmap (or anything else, it doesn't matter). To bring the above functions up immediately enter:

 xmodmap /home/mythtv/.Xmodmap

Now you need to make sure the above will come up each time the MythTV system is rebooted. This is system dependent, but basically whenever mythfrontend is about to start xmodmap should be run. Mythbuntu seems to automatically do this for a ~/.Xmodmap for the user running the frontend.

The Mouse-trackpad

With the current release of Ubuntu (8.10) no further configuration is needed to get the mouse-trackpad of the diNovo mini working. However With the previous Ubuntu versions the following changes will see it right.

Based on some great work by the myth-fans in AVSforums, repairing the problem is a simple configuration change.

As root (or via sudo) add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/options -

For Ubuntu 8.10:

 No update is necessary, it seems to work without modification.

For Ubuntu 8.04:

 options usbhid quirks=0x046d:0xc71f:0x00080000

For Ubuntu 7.10: (not verified by the author)

 options usbhid quirks=0x046d:0xc71f:0x00200000

Then rebuild your kernel startup ramdisk, because you need these options at boot-time:

 update-initramfs -u

Technical Notes

• Using your own bluetooth adapter can cause problems with this keyboard. The author's own (inexpensive) bluetooth dongle failed to maintain a good link to the keyboard, and using other bluetooth devices (e.g.: a nearby Nintendo Wii console) would cause the link to drop-out. Using the dongle included with the keyboard solves these stability problems.
• On those rare occasions when the keyboard will not pair with the computer - remove the battery from the keyboard (and type a few keys to exhaust capacitors), before trying again. This usually does the trick.

Usability

After more than 10 months of using this keyboard exclusively with MythTV, the author has these observations on usability:

• For day-to-day operation it's great. It can sit on the arm of the lounge without being obtrusive.
• Less technical family members have no trouble with operation.
• Generally, it's ok to type on given it's size, but one must be careful.
• The Track-pad arrow keys are not as good as they could be. It seems that if the track-pad warms up under your finger, it becomes much less responsive to button pushes. Lifting your finger off for a few seconds restores operation, but that should not be necessary on such an expensive keyboard.
• After being 'asleep' overnight, it does take a few seconds to get it's ship together when you first open it up. Sometimes it seems to reboot itself if it fluffs the first bluetooth connection attempt (or something).
• The author would buy the same keyboard over again, given this knowledge.

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