(and what other ideas I have for it)
I have two different computers with apple keyboards for two different reasons.
One is an old macbook air with ubuntu mate on it
The other one is my work computer. I am moving in a couple weeks from a private labratory to a common area at my office. For some reason that I don't really understand, there are people out there who hate the sound of my Cherry mechanical keyboard. So instead I have found this keyboard
which is quite, and also comfortable to type on.
Well, they don't have a SysRq key! So I need to add one for screenshots.
I know what you are thinking - why don't you just remap another key? Because then I would have to unremap it whenever I use a normal keyboard, especially my Macbook Air when I am sitting at a table at home with a keyboard and screen, but also my work computer, when I am working late and nobody else is around an I get my loud keyboard out of its secret hiding spot.
Also, I don't think you can always remap SysRq because of the way the Kernel intercepts it
When I put ubuntu mate on my old mac I decided to make the Exposé button work. This is great except that when I am using it at a desk with my home external keyboard, which again is a normal keyboard, I don't have that button. So I need one of these devices set up at my desk at home configured to send the expose keycode (120) in addition to the one I keep portable for using my laptop on the couch, and at the coffee shop, for taking screenshots.
I was thinking this one
could be used for for like, somebody who always forgets to lock their computer I tried setting it to to 120 KEY_SCREENLOCK but it didn't work at least on Gnome Ubuntu. But you can set it to any key, like a key that doesn't really exist like F24 and then configure that key to lock your computer.
Like many Emacs users, every time my hands start to hurt from too much emacs, I start to dream about pedals for modifier keys, but really, I think I could retrain myself to use vim key bindings emacs more easily than pedals, and as an added bonus I would know how to use vim.
If I ever need a button to run a script for example, now that I already have this, I will consider mapping one of these to something like F24 or KEY_KATAKANAHIRAGANA and then connecting that key to my script using the gnome configuration for launching scripts with keys. I could just skip the middle man and make the driver run the script - but I already have the whole fake keyboard setup, so might as well use the gnome setting interface to configure it.