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Author Topic: Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?  (Read 3241 times)

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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 16:53:03 »
Hi all,

got a nearly new (supposedly only used for hours) Choc Pro in the mail today...  first impressions are really good.  Stabilizers are a little clattery, but I suspect a little white lithium will fix that right up.  Key caps seem to be closer to Cherry profile than Filco which I like - is that correct?  Feel is nice and if anything I think that other than the clattery stabilizers it's actually quieter than my Filco.  Like the feel and look of the keycaps and I have heard that these are supposed to be POM and very durable, is that correct?

Now the question - I of course hooked it right up so that if there was a problem I could contact the seller.  So far it seems fine, BUT.  Only the num lock light works.  The caps lock and scroll light lock don't work on my Ubuntu 10.04 system.  So this might end up being my take to work board, because we run Windows in the orifice, and if I don't have a working caps lock light that is annoying.  Is this some artifact of Noppoo's several keyboards connected at once gimmickry to do NKRO through USB that's messing with me?  Anyone know of a fix?

Aside from that quibble and the presumed need for grease on the stabilizers, so long as there's no firmware weirdness with the keyboard, I really like it so far.  Main complaint that I haven't mentioned yet is the goofy looking "CHOC PRO" lettering in the upper right - it's a very Filco-esque case (in fact, the top part may be identical save for the lack of a logo recess?  will check when I rip them apart! - only main difference I see is the size/shape of the rubber feet and flip down stands) therefore it's nice and professional looking, but the logo ruins it, whereas the Filco logo doesn't look out of place on a professional desk.  Sitting next to my Filco with Cherry white on black doubleshots, other than the logo, either one looks similarly understated and professional in my eyes.  Save for the damn logo.

So now of course I have another quandary...  I was planning on ripping both this and the Filco apart and putting clears in one and the ergo clears in another, but if the Choc Pro is going to have to be my office board, I need to figure out which switch I prefer best first :)  I'm leaning toward straight clears but am not 100% certain of that yet...  ah, well, it's only money if I get it wrong, right?  (I also got some SP Esc keys in the mail today, so the Filco got a little extra desk bling... those suckers are RED!  but I do notice that it's ESC and not Esc which bothers me a little, but not enough to take it off...)
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline DaemonRaccoon

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #1 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 17:00:00 »
Scroll lock won't do anything under Linux unless you're on a TTY (i.e. not on the desktop). No clue why Caps Lock won't light up; I know Num Lock has problems with multiple keyboards, so it may just be due to the way the Noppoo identifies itself.
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122-Key Model F 6110345 1985-03-01 | Model M SSK 1391472 1991-01-22 | Rosewill RK-9000 v1 | KBC Poker X | Filco FKBN87M/PWE2

Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #2 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 17:02:50 »
yeah, that's what I was thinking.  Frankly, I like this keyboard more than I thought that I would, and I've only had it for an hour or so.  So finding an issue with it is a bit of a disappointment.  Hopefully someone will post a workaround or fix though.  (I wish I were computer literate enough to figure it out myself, but I'm really not...)

Oh, and the box copy is freakin' hilarious, although I'm sure that's old news here.

Edit:  before I'd found this site, if you told me that I would buy an expensive, Chinese-made, not really sold in the US keyboard and immediately start pulling keys off and gobbing grease on it, I'd have told you that you were crazy.  That said,  Ahhhhh... much better now.  A little lube makes it all better.
« Last Edit: Fri, 19 August 2011, 17:23:12 by N8N »
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline The Solutor

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #3 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 18:16:24 »
Is not uncommon behavior in linux

I have an old silicon image SATA raid controller, it always had problems with the windows drivers, and always worked perfectly in linux, but the activity led doesn't work in linux.
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The problem with quotes on the Internet is you never know if they are true  (Abraham Lincoln)

fossala

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #4 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 18:53:26 »
If you need to get scroll lock to work in linux you can enable the scroll lock key by typing:
xmodmap -pm
to find an unused modifier ... on my machine, mod3 is free
to set up the scroll lock key on mod3, you can type:
xmodmap -e 'add mod3 = Scroll_Lock'
now the scroll lock key should work
add it to your xsessions or xinitrc file so it happens on starting X.
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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #5 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 18:58:02 »
actually if the caps lock LED worked, that'd be good enough for me.  I don't really care whether scroll lock works or not...
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline TexasFlood

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #6 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 19:53:40 »
if I google ubuntu xmodmap caps lock, I see some good links to info such as this.
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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #7 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 20:15:20 »
the caps lock button itself works fine... but the LED doesn't light up when caps lock switches state for the PC.  e.g. i JUST HIT CAPS LOCK BUT THE LIGHT IS NOT ON and it's not on now either...
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline sordna

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #8 on: Fri, 19 August 2011, 20:30:31 »
Actually, on my machine (also Ubuntu) when I have multiple keyboards plugged in, only the keyboard whose capslock I press lights up.
I bet it's the Noppoo's controller (which acts like 3 controllers for the NKRO) interacting the same way.
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Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline bpiphany

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #9 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 01:25:14 »
Hitting num lock on a second keyboard in Ubuntu is recognized by the first, that doesn't happen with caps lock for some reason I don't know. I call it a bug myself.. Scroll lock is deactivated by default and needs to be "turned on" as described earlier in the thread.
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Offline The Solutor

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #10 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 01:50:08 »
BTW anyone has tested this with a true distro ?

Just to know if it's an ubuntu only behavior
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The problem with quotes on the Internet is you never know if they are true  (Abraham Lincoln)

Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #11 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 07:54:05 »
Quote from: PrinsValium;402079
Hitting num lock on a second keyboard in Ubuntu is recognized by the first, that doesn't happen with caps lock for some reason I don't know. I call it a bug myself.. Scroll lock is deactivated by default and needs to be "turned on" as described earlier in the thread.

eh, figures.  I dunno if I'd really call it a "bug" - how often do you have more than one keyboard hooked up simultaneously?  (although I did notice something similar with a laptop - if I leave the laptop open and one of the fuzzy critters hits "Caps Lock" on the laptop keyboard, the light on the "real" keyboard won't be lit, but CL will be active.

So I guess really if all are in agreement that this is due to Noppoo's use of multiple "keyboards" to achieve NKRO then this really should be reported to Ubuntu and/or Debian development teams.

Edit: you know what's odd, is I can't tell any difference in tactility between this board and the board that I have w/ ergo clears.  And it's noticeably more tactile than the Filco.  Did Cherry recently change the profile of the brown stems?  Or maybe these caps are significantly lighter than Cherry caps to the point where there's a noticeable difference?  (Filco is brown w/ Cherry doubleshots, ergo clears board is a G80 w/ Cherry PBT caps)

Weird.  wish I could pull a stem to examine w/o desoldering.

Edit2: I didn't know if this would work or not, but I dug out a purple passive PS/2 adapter and one of the Belkin active PS/2 to USB adapters - that causes the Caps Lock LED to function more or less correctly (although now I assume that I will not have NKRO but 6KRO - not that I've tested, or feel a real need for more than 6KRO.)  The issue still exists where if I press Caps Lock on the laptop's built in keyboard it will not light the light on the external keyboard, but that appears to be across the board with all external keyboards, not just the Choc Pro.  So apparently the Choc Pro will work correctly over PS/2 (I wasn't sure if that would work or not, the documentation included with it being rather sparse, and not getting a purple thingy with it) and also this does appear to be a Linux/Ubuntu "problem" not a problem with the Noppoo.  Now that I've started thinking about it, the handling of the Caps Lock LED on a laptop is kind of annoying.
« Last Edit: Sat, 20 August 2011, 08:49:26 by N8N »
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline TexasFlood

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #12 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:12:30 »
Workaround to show capslock status in panel applet, not ideal but...

"sudo apt-get install lock-keys-applet"
"killall gnome-panel"
Right click the panel, click "Add to panel" and then choose the "Lock Keys" applet
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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #13 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:16:01 »
oh, I like that.  Not least because this stupid laptop doesn't have a caps lock LED for its own keyboard.  thanks!
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #14 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:35:07 »
BTW at least per the tests here:

http://gadzikowski.com/nkeyrollover.html

it appears that this is in fact true NKRO over USB, or at least enough keys to make absolutely no difference to the average user (was using pencils etc. to hold down big blocks of keys) so Noppoo has come up with something cool, albeit marginally useful to the average user.
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline TexasFlood

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #15 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:48:41 »
Quote from: ripster;402217
Sudo Just Don't Use Capslock.
Windows folks always get the syntax wrong...
« Last Edit: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:51:23 by TexasFlood »
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Offline N8N

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Noppoo Choc Pro LEDs not working in Ubuntu?
« Reply #16 on: Sat, 20 August 2011, 09:49:49 »
Hah, I agree...  EXCEPT that I do use capslock sometimes because typically text on MEP plans is in ALL CAPS and I still occasionally have to jump in myself and do some CAD work when engineering is too backed up.

But really, my main desire to have functional LEDs is due to His Orange Fuzziness and his proclivity to walk across the desk when I'm not looking.  (obviously using a Linux system at home when the system goes idle it needs a password to get back in, so he doesn't actually mess anything up, but if I don't realize that Caps Lock is on that can cause some momentary frustration.)
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Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)
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