What is your personal preference based on experience? I Assume because Mac is Unix and Linux is Unix based, it would be more suited, but I have no personal experience with the layout. I am willing to try something new if i hear enough merits for it, and I also find the windows layout somewhat inadequate(The grass is greener on the other side /s)
I dailydrive Gnome, I am not a programmer, but i am a power user
(On a tangent: Why is gnome so restrictive, it feels like its missing a ton of UI features that are trivial without a boatload of 3rd party extensions that break every update; why doesn’t Win+Shift+number launch a new instance, every other DE does, why doesn’t it?; I don’t use KDE because I just don’t like it, I feel Gnome could be way more if it just natively integrated the extensions ).
aesthetically the windows key annoys me and i hate putting stickers on keyboards; I like how the mac layout looks(My very minimal experience with an in store mac-book has cautioned me away from the fisher-price OS so i don’t know if it is intuitive to use)
So what you are saying is most standard Linux software expect a windows layout? What about apps like Gimp, FireFox, and LibreOffice? and are there any outliers you know of?
I believe you are fixating on something that won’t have much impact regardless of what choice you make. I have been using “windows keyboards” on Linux for years with literally no problems (related to keyboards and Linux). I mostly game, browse the web and work as a software engineer.
Focus on what feels good physically/ergonomically for you and your workflow and you’ll be golden.
The only caveat I’d throw in there is if your keyboard of choice has some sort of RGB program for Windows or other custom software. It might not be as simple to control that functionality from Linux, but in many cases there are open source Linux alternatives for that software.
There’s no difference; a keyboard is a keyboard. Just grab one from the pile and plug it in.
Hummm… personal preference, but when I SSH into a linux server with my Mac… I totally hate the keyboard shortcuts… They are driving me crazy.
Windows keyboard shortcuts, feel more “native” and easier to use.
Can’t explain it, but while I used both, I totally hate the mac keyboard shortcut keys.
Doing something like CMD + Option + bsp that reflects to alt + bsp on windows… :/
Huh, interesting. Since I got a Mac at work I have problems going back as command/alt + key feel a lot more natural than control + key.
Keyboard is keyboard as far as I am concerned. I’m using an old Microsoft Ergo 4000 V1 that I got probably 10 years ago. I have used this same keyboard on a Windows 10/11 install, multiple bare metal Linux installs and a MacBook Pro.
The only issue is the Command key as I recall on the MacBook but that can be remapped if I remember correctly.
Not as “command”, but if you map it to something else it can be useful in lots of ways:
- In combinations with other keys to launch programs.
- In combinations with other keys or with the mouse to manipulate windows and workspaces.
- In combination with other keys to create diacritics for non-English languages or useful Unicode symbols such as ½, ⁰C, ±, € and so on.
You can map the command keys separately too because they emit different keycodes. For example I use my right-hand super key to launch programs but my left-hand key (with Ctrl or alone) to switch to the next/prev workspace.
Those old Microsoft Ergonomic keyboards are so under-appreciated. I had one for years and it improved my typing no end and was really comfortable to use, it was like it found my fingers. Then someone bought me an expensive keyboard as a gift and I feel obliged to use it, but I do miss the old Ergo.
I loved the layout of the Ergo 4000, in particular the fact they shortened the space bar and moved modifiers like the Alt keys inwards. That’s one thing that’s almost impossible to replicate with other keyboards.
Unfortunately they let me down in durability. I must’ve gone through 3-4 of them in the same span of time as OP. Obviously our use patterns must be different. The pads and keycaps would wear down and the membrane would fail.
