SysAdmin Adventures

I thought I should mention that I have taken the decision to teach myself to be capable of swapping between QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts. There are a number of goals here, primarily to learn a new skill and to give myself the ability to swap to pure Dvorak later on if I want to or medically need to, but also because I like the idea that it was designed for typing. QWERTY is obsolete and is still being used because it’s what people are used to and the general public are always scared of change. Dvorak was scientifically designed to help people to type better – I can’t think of a better reason to try it! I can’t remember exactly when I started, I’m guessing it was about a year ago now and it’s coming along nicely.

On my desk, I have two machines, both with identical Big Ol’ Dell Keyboards. But I have swapped the keys around on the one on the left to make it a Dvorak-UK layout. The box on the right is my main working desktop (Slackware-13.0) and the one on the left is mainly for IRC run out of tty2 although I also use it for live testing when writing code. Because the IRC box is the Dvorak box, all I do is type which gives me a lot of practice.

I got past the hunt-and-peck stage in about 6 weeks, and slowly started getting better from there. I still have trouble with M and W being next to each other, and I often grab the wrong vowel, but other than that I’ve gotten pretty good. Sometimes I get so comfortable I reach over to the QWERTY keyboard and momentarily forget how to type; but that’s only occasionally. I think I do pretty well swapping between the two.

I now have a new skill for my CV and the ability to fend off RSI later in life. I feel I have accomplished something.

Some notes:

• Do not bother trying to find a Dvorak keyboard – people just don’t sell them – rearrange one you have.
• Pick a good keyboard to re-arrange. Try to find one that has no curvature so the keys are all the same dimensions and set at the same angle.
• In a linux console: `loadkeys dvorak` will give you a Dvorak (US) layout instantly.
• In Slackware 13.0, tell hald about your new keyboard as in my earlier post so it works in X.

I urge everyone to spend a little time reading DVZine to rid you of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about Dvorak. There’s a lot of misinformation out there and DVZine will put you straight.

Have fun.