Watch video on: Odysee, Youtube

Contents

• Specs

• Why a mechanical keyboard?

• Ortholinear layout

• Switches

• Switch plate

• Keycaps

• Comparison with Dygma’s Defy

• Accessories

• Configuring

• Verdict

Seller: Keebio (US$434 + shipping)

Specs: Iris AE Aluminium

• Top and Bottom parts of case

• Switch plates (FR4 and Stainless Steel)

• SKUF silicone feet

• Silicone tray inserts

• Carrying case (only with the aluminium iris)

• [PCB is ordered separately]

• M2 and M3 Screws (requires allan key)

• O-rings for burger mount

• Documentation: Iris Aluminum Case Build Guide

Why a mechanical keyboard?

• From a reddit thread on Emacs:

“Using the mouse forces my hands off the home row, forces my eyes off my cursor (to the target of a gesture). The mouse and all its control-theory ephemera are a source of sheer agony. They cause me to hate my computer and to tire quickly from any use of it. … There is a special ring in Dante's inferno for the inventor of the mouse and for the legions of GUI designers [who] built all the World's software around it.”

How to understand this point-of-view

• a move to Linux, ultimately, is a move away from the graphical user interface (GUI)

• away from a mouse pointer that impedes your view of the text and triggers anxious tooltips and hover cards

• and superfluous menus and prompts and notifications - useless distractions designed to coddle, steal your attention and break your flow

• and towards simplicity and the terminal and control of your system

• the keyboard becomes central

Reasons to use a mechanical split keyboard

• ergonomics

  • possibility of tenting

• enough space to place a book or laptop

  • better posture for back and shoulders

• a regular keyboard takes up a lot of space with wasted keys

  • if it includes a number pad then the keyboard is off-centre and pushes the mouse out to the side

• a split keyboard has a cluster of keys for the thumb

  • instead of a physical, dedicated space for arrow and fn keys they can be placed on a 2nd layer accessible from the thumb cluster

    • a regular programmable keyboard (e.g Keychron) will allow layers but without the thumb cluster to access them it’s impractical

  • it is typical to allocate modifier keys found on the periphery (and thus struck with the weaker pinky finger) to the thumb cluster for easier access

    • e.g. ctrl and alt keys which get a lot of use in Vim; and other keys such as esc and backspace

• personalise the board

  • change switches and keycaps for a different feel

  • easily take it apart to clean or lube switches

  • take it apart to inspect a problem (e.g. keystroke not registering)

  • change the layout; add key combinations and macros

• escape the mouse

  • mouse movements could be placed on another layer to scroll webpages with Vim-like keybindings

  • thus, your fingers do not leave the keyboard and your eyes do not leave the display

Ortholinear layout

• Iris is a split keyboard with an ortholinear layout; it is intended for those who touch-type, e.g. programmers and writers

  • learning to touch-type can take several months of daily practice; try sites like monkeytype.com and typeracer.com

• compare the Iris layout with other split keyboards here: compare.splitkb.com

• the primary motivation for the ortho layout is egonomics; there may be an incidental increase in typing speed

• if you can touch-type on a keyboard with a staggered layout, it is quick to adjust to the ortho layout, i.e. a couple hours of practice

Switches

• Original: Cherry Pink, Linear Switch; ‘quiet’ version of the red linear switch

• Replacement: Cherry MX2A Brown 55g Tactile Switch (3 pins), sold by mechanicalkeyboards.com (UK)

Reasons to change switches

• inadvertent key presses seem more likely with linear switches

  • e.g., if leaning on the home row dd can delete a row in Vim (consider remapping dd to D)

• the MX2A are a new switch and “represent more premium, expensive options alongside the original MX series“

• tactile (Brown) switches give a familiar feel and may reduce accidental key presses

  • discussed here and here

• not all tactile switches are favourable

  • we wouldn’t recommend the sunflowers sold by Keebio: “the force needed to actuate is so much that the landing becomes very harsh“

• be careful to check the pins; a lot of the switches we received had bent pins (as seen in the video)

  • inserting bent pins “can push the socket off of the PCB and damage it“

Switch plate

• Original: Stainless steel

• Replacement: FR4

Reasons to change the switch plate

• from the documentation:

  • “The stainless steel plates are heavier and stiffer, which provide a sturdy but stiffer feel.”

  • “The FR4 plates are lighter and have more flex, which can provide a more bouncier feel“

  • both plates are provided by Keebio when ordering the Iris

• switches are difficult to remove from the steel plate (as seen in the video); and can be removed with ease from the FR4 plate

• we want to remove switches quickly and frequently, e.g. to clean the board

  • the FR4 plate is preferable because it is easier to work with in this regard

Keycaps

• Original: Filco Chocolate MINILA, ABS double-shot, sold by mechanicalkeyboards.com

• Replacement: GMK MTNU Graphite, PBT double-shot; design by Matt3o; sold by Oblotzky Industries: euros135.50 + shipping

Reasons to change keycaps

• high-profile keycaps (e.g. SA) may be appealing

  • easily striking the tall number keys and [,] for Vim movements

• but: the SA keycaps were stubborn and had a glossy feel; they were horrible to type on

  • “PBT plastic is less common but is usually higher quality than ABS. ABS keycaps feel smooth and develop a greasy shine over time, while PBT keycaps feel textured and are more durable.“

  • Ways to avoid ABS shine: “If there was a way to prevent or undo ABS shine, it would definitely be common knowledge already. Just buy PBT.“

  • with ABS there’s more friction and fingers don’t glide over the keycaps

• MTNU keycaps are effortless; Matt3o presents his design here: MTNU, the definitive guide

  • at 31m0s: “SA is the weirdo … Ergonomically speaking, it doesn’t make any sense“

  • at 9m0s: Matt3o defends the PBT plastic

• keycaps are expensive, but the result is a new board with a completely different feel

  • more comfortable; faster typing and fewer typos

  • the keycaps are lighter and sound better

• MTNU is named after MT3 - Matt3o’s higher-profile, preceding design (MT new = MTNU)

  • we ordered MT3 from Drop but they ‘disappeared’ during shipping; only Drop sell them and we gave up

• blank keycaps make sense

  • what the key does depends on the layer

  • if you can touch-type you are not looking at the keys

Comparison with Dygma’s Defy

• alternatives to the Iris include

  • Moonlander

  • Advantage360; a clumsy, archaic board made popular by Primeagen

  • self-builds: Killer Whale (with a track ball); ergodash

  • the Defy (pictured below); this is the main alternative; based on experience we note the following issues

• the low-profile keycaps on the thumb cluster are bespoke and susceptible to breaking

  • the thumb cluster will take a beating and the low-profile caps are not as tough as one would hope

  • you may not have spare low-profile switches lying around; and certainly won’t have spare keycaps for this thumb cluster

• other keycaps on the board are OEM profile and may not be preferrable

  • OEM is good for beginners: it’s easy for the fingers to find the home row

  • the Iris allows us to source keycaps elsewhere

• there are too many keys, e.g. on the thumb cluster, although the design is rational

  • Dygma made an interesting video on this but failed to include Iris in their discussion

  • at 7m30s they suggest the user has freedom-of-choice if there are more keys on the thumb cluster and the lower keys are ‘secondary’

    • this may not gel with the Linux crowd who have a hankering for simplicity and parsimony

    • if you use 2 additional layers to the main layer then a cluster of 4 keys is sufficient (see Configuring below)

  • the extra inner and outer columns seem superfluous and they note this

  • the Moonlander has the same problem; unlike Dygma they offer key covers to hide the unused keys

• although VIA is fine (see Configuring below), Dygma’s Bazecor is superior

• Dygma are unencumbered by previous designs; we can follow their logic, but we are accustomed to the Iris

  • the Defy broadens appeal and gives new users leeway

  • they are right: the upper key on the Iris thumb cluster seems awkward at first

    • a high-profile keycap could be placed here and you get used to it

Accessories

• possible wrist rests: Crystals Gel Flexible Wrist Rest x2, sold by splitkb.com (Netherlands)

  • we found wrist rests are not needed

• possible track ball: ploopy nano, shown here with an Iris

• order a USB-C cable (from Keebio) long enough to keep the splits shoulder width apart, e.g. 1m

• Keebio provide a solid carry case but the weighty, expensive AE is not a keyboard for the office

  • the low-profile Iris (LM) is small and light enough for the commute to the office

• if tactile switches are too noisy consider dampeners; they are not an ideal solution however, and are typically avoided

• the tiny o-rings are easily lost (as seen in the video)

  • Keebio can provide replacements if you email them and make a custom payment; but o-rings are not essential, they provide some bounce (as per Keebio’s video)

• Keebio now offer a magnetic tenting kit

  • the Iris AE has some tenting in the design

Configuring

• see the VIA Usage Guide (Keebio have great documentation)

• VIA is open-source; download version 3.0.0 from github

• the screenshots below show how we configured our board

  • we use MO to move between layers; from the documentation, MO(layer #) “momentarily activates [layer #] while … holding down the key. Once released, the keyboard goes back to [layer 0]“

  • in Via you can save the current layout; our layout can be downloaded from our github: gist.github.com/BasedScience

  • we could easily add symbols for writing in multiple languages too

  • it is quite common to put arrows on another layer: “I mapped the Vim navigation keys to the arrow keys“

  • with smaller keyboards like the Kyria you would map the number keys to the home row; others want to put modifiers here, i.e.: homerow mods

• why place mouse movements on a layer?

  • unfortunately some clients force us to use a Windows machine; this is also why we add arrow keys to the 2nd layer, e.g. for moving around spreadsheets

  • quickly shove the mouse pointer out of the way without moving hands off the keyboard

• the following clip shows the finger placement for selecting text using mouse movements

  • the left pinky holds the shift key; the left thumb moves the keyboard to Layer 2; the right pointer finger starts the text selection while the ring finger drags the mouse pointer to select the text

• macros are useful for difficult key combinations and frequent actions

  • to archive an email in Outlook the shortcut is ctrl-shift-v; this is a frequent action and the key combination is awkward; thus it could be achieved with a macro

Verdict

In general, it is worth paying more if you have the money. You will spend more moving incrementally forward from a budget keyboard to a split keyboard - a likely destination.

The extra weight of the AE (aluminium edition) prevents the board from shifting on the desk, and we cannot overstate the difference good keycaps make: if you do not like the Iris it might be the keycaps and not the Iris.

The Iris simplifies issues. E.g., the ANSI versus ISO discussion is redundant; the virtues of a dedicated number pad or trackball are an aside; and RGB lighting is unnecessary: if you can touch-type you do not need to see the keys in the dark (thus it is not added to our configuration above).

Forget the old technique of palming ctrl keys; or reaching for the <esc> key in the top left everytime you jump to normal mode in Vim; and discussions about how to hit modifier keys when touch typing. And the obligatory remapping of the capslock key (a large piece of real estate for a useless key) to a ctrl key. Forget all such nonsense.

If this post seems too opinionated, try the geekhack forum for good, honest opinion, e.g.: Split and ortholinear did nothing for my RSI. There is some research on the topic, e.g. Effect of setup configurations of split computer keyboards on wrist angle. Xah Lee goes deep too.

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Watch video on: Odysee, Youtube

Contents

• Specs

• Linux commands for system checks

  • What shell am i using, etc.

  • Files and directories

  • Mint version, etc.

  • Installed packages

  • Storage

  • Memory

  • Processor

  • Graphics

  • Upgrading to Mint 22 and kernel 6.8

  • WiFi

  • Benchmarking

• Downsides

• Upsides

• Verdict

Seller: Linuxpusher

Manufacturer: AVD

Specs

• OS: can choose beteen Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint

• DE: for Mint, select between Cinnamon, Mate & Xfce

• Processor: Intel i5 13 generation

• RAM: choose 8, 16 or 32 GB

• Storage: choose 250, 500, 1000, 2000 GB

• Price: ~1200 euros

• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics eligible

• Ports

  • 4 x USB 3.0

  • 2 x USB 2.0

  • 2 x HDMI + DP

  • 2 x 2.5Gbe LAN

  • 1 x COM

  • 1 x Thunderbolt Type C

  • Audio jack

  • Mic

• Mounting plate

• USB for reinstallation of Mint

Linux commands for system checks

We use the terminal to look at the system. We want to check the version of Mint etc., check what tools are installed, and confirm the hardware.

Neofetch is pre-installed and gives some of this information quickly, but it is no longer maintained and it’s better to learn the Linux commands. See The Linux Command Line book for basic commands.

What shell am I using, etc.

• xfce4-terminal --hide-menubar

  • ctrl + to zoom (enlarge text)

• echo $0, or echo $SHELL

• cat /etc/shells

  • also Dash etc.

• aliases available: alias

• tab works for autocomplete

Files and directories

• pwd

  • working directory: user’s home directory

• ls -a

  • there was an option to encrypt this home directory during the initial boot

• ls .config

  • configuration files; evolution is an email client

  • swap file; we will consider this below

• ls /

  • the familiar Linux directory structure; this can vary slightly, e.g. the location of media on Arch

  • we will use the proc directory below to extract detail about the system

Mint version, etc.

• lsb_release -a

• 21.3 (we will upgrade to 22 below)

  • Mint is based on Ubuntu; there is a Debian edition

• check the version of Xfce: xfce4-about

  • not recognised

  • neofetch shows 4.18 (the latest stable version)

• Terminal prompt shows dockien-BQM5

  • hostname

  • BQM5 refers to the motherboard; this name could be changed using command hostnamectl; this is useful if you will ssh to a remote machine often: you want to know which machine you’re in

• Kernel: uname --kernel-release, or: uname -r

  • 5.15 (LTS kernel: long life and stable updates)

  • Mint 22 uses kernel 6.8

  • display all kernels: dpkg -l | grep linux-image | grep ii

Installed packages

• check the manual for command dpkg: man dpkg

• dpkg -l | grep -c '^ii'

  • no. of pre-installed packages = 2149; we installed OBS Studio to do the screen capture and this added 44 packages, hence 2193

  • compare this to a fresh install of EndeavourOS: 797! (last time we installed it), or Sparky Linux: 1891

• search installed packages:

  • dpkg -l > checkme.txt

  • wc checkme.txt (no. of lines ~ no. of packages)

  • vi checkme.txt

• Vim is not pre-installed, only vi. Git is also missing, and trash-cli and clamav (virus scan), but rsync and timeshift (for backups) are installed

  • rsync --version: 3.2.7 (compare with EndeavourOS: 3.3.0)

  • grep --version: 3.7 (compare with EndeavourOS: 3.11)

• Media: for video vlc, celluloid (mpv) and yt-dlp are installed; gimp, kdenlive and OBS are not installed (fair enough)

• Firefox is pinned to the toolbar, instead of alternatives, e.g. Librewolf, floorp, arken fox and mullvad

  • Firefox has fallen out of favour with Linux users; see “How Mozilla Ruined Firefox“ by Eric Murphy

  • Mint has Flatpak built in and Librewolf can be installed with the following command:

    • flatpak install flathub io.gitlab.librewolf-community

    • note this command points to gitlab and Librewolf moved to codeberg, but this command is current

    • other popular apps are available as flatpaks in the Software Manager; e.g. Keepass, Signal, Discord

Storage

• lsblk

• ~1000 GB SSD

• note the file system type

  • df -Th | grep “^/dev”, or lsblk -f

    • ext4

    • this is expected and needed for timeshift

    • Windows machines use NTFS; we connected an external drive with NTFS to the mini PC and it was immediately usable; in comparison arch is more bothersome (check ntfs-3g is installed and then use command: mount -t ntfs)

    • there is a known ntfs issue with kernel 6.8 and thus Mint 22 (see below)

    • a case can be made for BTRFS as the default for Linux distros

• fdisk -l

  • model: Kingston

• sudo lshw -short | grep disk

  • NVMe: generally superior to SATA i.e. newer and a lot faster

Memory

• free -h

• 2 GB swap file and 32 GB physical RAM

  • swap is desirable even with 32 GB physical RAM, e.g., if you like to hibernate your machine

  • the default 8 GB RAM is never enough, and setting up a swap file and adjusting swappiness post-hoc is not a good solution (based on experience)

  • Linus Torvalds: “all the normal distributions set things up with swap partitions, not files, because honestly, swapfiles tend to be slower and have various other complexity issues“

    • swap file is more of a work around but it gives the flexibility to change its size

  • swapon --show

  • cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

    • 60

    • opinions vary regarding what swappiness to use; try different values and see what works best

Processor

• lscpu | grep Model

  • the new Intel i5 13 gen is faster and uses less power than the i7 12 gen

    • i5 13th gen V i7 12 gen

  • lscpu also shows e.g. no. of cores: 16

    • this is also found with: nproc --all

  • for even more detail, use: cat /proc/cpuinfo

  • CPU usage: top (image above)

    • sort by memory usage with M and cpu with P

    • htop is not pre-installed; htop’s display is easier to read than top, e.g. memory and cpu usage; install htop: sudo apt install htop

• for performance see Benchmarking below

Graphics

• much of the detail about hardware above could have been obtained using this single command

  • sudo lshw -short -sanitize

  • for graphics: sudo lshw -C display -sanitize

  • Iris Xe (what we expect) is not indicated; this is why it’s important to check the system

• according to AVD the graphics should be Intel Iris Xe

  • “support for the Intel Iris Xe Graphics processor has already been integrated into Linux and integrated into Linux-based distributions such as Ubuntu 20.04.1“

• try other commands

  • lspci -mm, or inxi -G

  • lspci | grep VGA

    • confirms Iris Xe is not indicated; seems to be an issue with the kernel

• thus we upgraged to Mint 22 and this fixed the issue as shown in the following screenshot

Upgrading to Mint 22 and kernel 6.8

• See video: Intel Iris Xe graphics require more current kernel: Upgrading to Mint 22

  • instructions for upgrading to 22 are on the Mint website

    • take a snapshot using timeshift first

    • and separately back-up your files (timeshift will not back up your documents etc.)

    • uninstall foreign packages, e.g. mullvad-vpn

• after updating we experienced this issue: Display settings keep popping up

  • this was fixed by changing when new displays are connected to do nothing in the display settings

• also, our ntfs drive no longer worked; a known issue that is making people reluctant to upgrade

• Mint suggest a solution but at your own risk

  • on the command line: dmesg | grep -i sda

  • if this shows “volume is dirty and "force" flag is not set!“ then open the Disks utility

  • select the external drive; when click on ‘repair filesystem’ you see the warning below; we proceeded, it was very quick and then the drive was recognised and now automounts

• for a more general look at the recent Mint 22 release see DistroTube or SwitchedToLinux

Wifi

• lspci | grep -i wi-fi, or: sudo lshw -C network -sanitize

  • wifi 6 (802.11ax) is common and expected; “WiFi 6 is capable of a maximum throughput speed of 9.6 Gbps, compared to 3.5 Gbps on WiFi 5 and 600Mbps on WiFi 4.“

  • wifi 7 is now available though

• also try iw or iwconfig (both are pre-installed on Mint)

  • iw dev

  • use the name appearing alongside Interface, i.e. wlp129s0

    • iw dev wlp129s0 link

    • HE=high efficiency

• speedtest.net

  • sudo apt install speedtest-cli

  • (note: “There is the potential for this tool to report results inconsistent with Speedtest.net“)

  • speedtest | tee -a speedtest.log

  • download 483 Mbit/s, upload 532 Mbit/s

  • this outperforms our StarLabs Starlite laptop in the same location

Benchmarking

• sysbench is an open source benchmarking tool; not pre-installed

  • geekbench (alternative) is not open-source

  • sudo apt install sysbench

  • sysbench cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 --threads=4 --time=60 run

    • results are number of prime numbers found per second

    • Starlite (with EndeavourOS, Intel Pentium Silver N5030):

      • 1333.99

    • old Lenovo ThinkCentre M910s (with MX Linux, i5 6gen):

      • 1525.01

    • new ADesk (with Mint, i5 13gen):

      • 2472.31

Downsides

• The fan is intermittenly noisy, it’s tolerable though and the machine remains only slightly warm to the touch

• No user manual is provided or findable online, e.g. for installing the mounting plate; Linuxpusher offers phone/email support for Linux at a price

• Other popular Linux distros are not offered by LinuxPusher; MX is offered by Starlabs and openSUSE is offered by Tuxedo; although other distros are easily installed manually, and Mint is quite okay, but Mint Debian edition would be ideal

• Mint is an entry point for new Linux users; the software manager is remiscent of Ubuntu with spotify, dropbox and skype given prominence like obnoxious ads

• Mint is reliable and respected, but will not satisfy everyone - those who prefer a rolling release like EndeavourOS or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, or more of a blank slate like Debian or even Sparky Linux

• Mint makes too many assumptions about what the user needs rather than allowing us to install what we want (memory hungry apps that are not wanted like LibreOffice and Thunderbird are included, yet git is not); there are many tools we will need to install and set-up to make this a terminal-centric, keyboard-centric machine; but this is going to be the case with pre-installed distros like TuxedoOS and PopOS

• Ideally, linux changes the way users think about how they interact with their computer, use email, prepare documents etc., by moving away from the graphical user interface (GUI). Mint, like Ubuntu, does not achieve this

Upsides

• Works out of the box; when it is turned on the user is asked for a username, password, location etc.; then it configures the system and the desktop appears with a Welcome application

• Cost may seem high but it is tough to find a linux machine with decent specs under 1000 euros; Planet has mini PCs with Linux but the hardware is inferior and they don’t offer a choice of distros or DEs; it would be easy enough to buy a 2nd hand Thinkcentre M920 Tiny for around 250euros and install Mint on it but such machines ultimately feel limited as they take on greater work loads; and there are serious risks if opting for a cheap Windows mini PC

• Xfce and Mint have great forums for seeking advice

• Linuxpusher offers a variety of DE’s; using a DE you are not familiar with is inefficient; Xfce is sufficient, we know it well, and would not want to be stuck with another DE; other Xfce distros could be considered e.g. MX and Alpine

• Kim at Linuxpusher included a quality, heavy cotton shirt and some stickers as a gift, and he is very responsive on email

• The machine is upgradeable, e.g. storage can be increased, but it would have to be shipped back to Linuxpusher

• Most manufacturers of linux machines focus on laptops; the Mini PC alternative saves space on your desk and can make more sense than a laptop (we don’t want the webcam, archaic keyboard and limited ports of a laptop)

Verdict

This mini PC will replace our Starlabs laptop. We put EndeavourOS on the laptop to keep it going but the hardware is very limited. The new PC from Linuxpusher will be a significant improvement. Likely we will put EndeavourOS on it because it is light and the rolling release makes it is easier to install some experimental, esoteric tools. SwitchedToLinux describes and contrasts the two distros here.

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