Keyboards and Linux

This is based on one of my Wordpress blogs. I've reworded it slightly, the original had a lot of Windows 8 hate which has subsided...

I have an MX5500 keyboard, which cost £120. It's a nice keyboard, but getting it to work in Ubuntu is hard.

It turns out, Bluetooth (BT) support in Linux is poor.





I could get my keyboard to work, but it would stop working across a full machine shutdown. I spend the first 5 minutes of a day, with a USB, wired, keyboard, logging-in and fixing the BT drivers, just to use the £120 keyboard and mouse I like so much.

The MX5500 works in both BT and non BT modes. While it boots in Non-BT mode, Ubuntu is forcing it into BT mode. I should've known this would cause problems, as it cause problems with the proper Logitech drivers in windows.

So, I have been looking for the solution. The mouse, on the other hand, it has no problem in BT mode. It pairs quite non-securely with no key. The keyboard requires a key, this is was is causing it's problem. This also causes a similar problem in Windows, but, if you don't have to log in, the Drivers help there.

When connecting you have to type in the key you are presented with on the screen. Of course, if you aren't logged in yet, you can't see the key yet, and you can't log in yet to see the screen. This is a major problem. If you auto-logging in in Windows, that's ok.

But this is not good in Ubuntu, if you also have to mess around with the BT system, whilst trying to get it to re-connect.

Ok, onto fixing it... One of the first things I found was mx5000-tools (This is a link to a translated russian site) which is a tool to manage the MX5000 keyboard, an earlier version of the 5500, with similar properties. The link also helped with the mouse settings, but it's the keyboard I'm more bothered about. I installed mx5000-tools, no package here though, how quaint.

It appeared to work at first, the BT panel went away, and I could run the commands to make the keyboard "beep" (ooh exciting), and I reset the clock on the LCD. This morning, however, the BT panel returned. mx5000-tools stopped working. And I had to plug in a spare keyboard again, just to log in. The mouse was still working though. A sign that it was back to normal.

Back to Google....

So searching, I hear of something else, "hid2hci".

Searching more...

I find a page about a Logitech Dinovo Edge keyboard with a similar problem, and how to fix it.

Apparently I can disable BT mode for devices that have non-BT/BT split personalities. The configurations have moved around over time. While the above page was for 12.04, it shows exactly where to put it. Just need to find my device information. Google helps with that again. The "lsusb" command shows me

>lsusb
...
Bus 002 Device 024: ID 046d:c709 Logitech, Inc. BT Mini-Receiver (HCI mode)
...

So, the vendor id is 046d and product id is c709, according to that, (and the file from the post) also some confirmation it's running in HCI mode. Going on the instructions laid out I created the following file

ACTION=="remove", GOTO="hid2hci_end"
SUBSYSTEM!="usb", GOTO="hid2hci_end"

# Logitech devices
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="046d", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c709", \
  RUN+="hid2hci --method=logitech-hid --devpath=%p"

ENV{DEVTYPE}!="usb_device", GOTO="hid2hci_end"

LABEL="hid2hci_end"

and saved it as "/etc/udev/rules.d/97-bluetooth-hid2hci.rules" (as sudo)...

It didn't already exist...  add to the file if it already does...
or create a new file with a higher number (I'm paraphrasing the readme instructions there). and then

>sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

finally I unplugged and plugged back in the Logitech receiver.

...
It's been 2 hours...

...
The BT panel hasn't come back since...


My keyboard is working, mx5000-tools are talking to it correctly...

...almost, I've found they have problems after working with them.

But all appears well...

Until the next problem with Ubuntu...




...wait Ubuntu is nothing but problems



...but it's still better than Windows.