Magpi 51 Your Letters page

[Wizzabeck]

Reader Ian Williams asks about the keyboard in the official starter kits - he wants to know whether English orders will contain an UK keyboard because the position of " and @ is reversed and causes problems when coding if using the US keyboard. This is Linux country. Although I've never needed to alter my keyboards I assume changing the code from a keypress to another character is easy. There are plenty of instruction sites online. The pages editor seems less than helpful, suggesting rewiring the brain or buying a cheap keyboard from elsewhere. Is the Pi somehow different which makes key changes impossible?

Regards Ken.

[DougieLawson]

Any kit that is manufactured and shipped with a keyboard from the UK it will have a UK keyboard layout.

We like our " on [SHIFT]+[2] our £ on [SHIFT]+[3] and the @ sign on a [SHIFT] two keys to the right of the [L] key.

Changing keyboard layouts is a stock standard Linux function. Having keys where the symbol on the keytop doesn't match what appears when you type is a major PITA for anyone who can't touch type. It's much easier that the keys match the characters they generate (which I found in Düsseldorf when I used a colleague's French keyboard).

[bensimmo]

Keyboard selection is in Raspi-config iirc.
I read that as well and found it very 'why bother even poting' as there was no real answer and sitting the issue.

But getting a US keyboard in a UK bundle would stop me from buying and recommending it. Especially from UK company
It's hardly 'premium' .

On the other hand the robot rover style pages are looking good and has my eldest interested. And I'll have a go with the PVR, though I don't like the idea of use a keyboard as the interface of what you are setting up is terrible w.r.t. TVhead bit.

[Wizzabeck]

It does strike me as odd that a US keyboard is being supplied, and since the saving of a kit is minimal I would not recommend it. If I had to use a non-UK board I would buy a modern paint pen and alter the key to match my code change. And Douglas, the editor definitely says a US keyboard is being supplied "for the moment".

Being old and grumpy I find some of the mag irritatingly silly and there's an awful lot of "join a to b and off you go" rather than hands on DIY, but then in every issue I find a "didn't know that" moment and with keeping me up-to-date and getting ideas to pass on to a grandson, it's worth the subs.

The game changer is the Zero. My garden railway operators wont know what's hit them next summer when a Zero at every station gives them options of what to do next, some of them can't even remember to send 'line clear'.

Ken

[DougieLawson]

It does strike me as odd that a US keyboard is being supplied, and since the saving of a kit is minimal I would not recommend it. If I had to use a non-UK board I would buy a modern paint pen and alter the key to match my code change. And Douglas, the editor definitely says a US keyboard is being supplied "for the moment".

It's probably a case of what keyboard they could source at the right price. For the UK market a US keyboard is a PITA, we have a use for our funky modified capital L (from Latin libre sisterci denarius notated as "£sd") for our currency symbol.