Greetings! I am installing a Supermicro H11DSi Dual EPYC CPU and desire to use my keyboard instead of my mouse. I’ve set it up with Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS. I’ve also searched a bit for helpful clues, but yet to find out how to use my keyboard instead of my mouse. Maybe I’m not asking the right questions in the search bar.
I did get the terminal window open and ran a simple command with the keyboard, but I can’t change to another program on the screen. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Back in the good old days of Ubuntu, had to use keyboard shortcuts mainly the tab key, as back then screen resolution on Linux was dreadful, especially getting NVIDIA drivers installed. The screen res would blow to gigantic proportions, leaving the user miffed and angry at the screen whilst trying to set 1024x768 resolution. No HD screens back then, just a very heavy bad for the environment monitor, that always felt like it was going to burst into flames and take off.
My point being if you want to use the tab button and arrow keys on your keyboard as a mouse, then the option is there. Or get yourself a keyboard with mouse buttons on.
There are also ways of having your apps open with keyboard shortcuts too, though I don’t use Ubuntu anymore. Look for keyboard settings and play around with them. You should be able to reset them if you make a mistake. The way to learn is to dive in at the deep end. When I first started with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx all those years ago, was chucked in the deep end and had no clue on what I was doing. Many a time I’d break the system, reinstalled countless times, threatened to chuck my computer out of the window on countless occasions.
Now look at Linux today and it is everywhere. We are all here to help and I am sure someone will come along soon to help you better than I? I still like to use a mouse, old school I am, as can never remember what day it is, let alone a keyboard shortcut.
Hi George,
I am not sure whether you are looking for keyboard shortcuts,
@clatterfordslim has answered that,
or something more drastic…
If you use the I3 window manager, nearly everything you want to do with windows can be done from the keyboard.
It is not easy, you have to install I3 alongside whatever DE you have now, and you have to get used to a tiling window manager, and you have to learn lots of keyboard tricks.
Maybe that is not where you were headed?
Did you perhaps mean you wanted to learn to use CLI commands?
Regards
Neville
Well, since I am using Linux Ubuntu I wanted to get more used to using the keyboard. What better way than just forcing myself to use the keyboard and not rely on the mouse. I was a M$/Windows user for nearly 40 yrs and finally switched to Ubuntu. I am liking it so much, I just thought I’d give it a whirl. I was hoping for a simpler solution, like a book or pamphlet of ‘guide & tricks’ to use while getting more used to doing it. Thanks for your suggestion anyway.
I was hoping for a simpler solution, like a book or pamphlet of ‘guide & tricks’ to use while getting more used to doing it. Thanks for your suggestion anyway.
Your Mileage May Vary…
Back - WAY back - I remember on Windows servers you could enable the cursor (arrow keys) to move the cursor - e.g. if you didn’t have a mouse connected to the Windows Server console… it was horrible stuff I’d never want to do again.
I don’t really use many keyboard shortcuts in Linux - mostly just the Super key (Windows). Many of the other keyboard shortcuts (e.g. clipboard Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are the same as in Windows - and Alt+Spacebar will bring up the “System Menu” for an application window, same as in MS Windows - same as right click on an application window “title bar”).
I use a combination of a ThinkPad keyboard, with Trackpoint (i.e. built in mouse) - but I also use a dedicated mouse as well…
I can’t imagine trying to drive a GUI system without some kinda mouse device…
What most experienced users of Linux seem to do is
I can see that is not quite what you had in mind. There are
keyboard shortcuts, but remembering them is a pain.
https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/shell-keyboard-shortcuts.html.en
You should switch to some WM they can fully controlled by keyboard (I use sway).
For simulating mouse by keyboard u can use warpd (I use it too).
Lenovo Think Pad L480 Kernel: 6.8.0-52-generic
Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 Distro: Ubuntu 22.04.5
I use keyboard short cuts eg Alt+F4 to close a window. This normally worked OK but recently it failed.
I went to Settings/Window Manager/Keyboard and reprogrammed the Alt+F4 keys when instead of showing Alt+F4 it showed
Alt+AudioMicMute corresponding to the icon shown on the F4 key.
I found file /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h which shows several different sets of codes for the function keys.
One set shows KEY_F1 thro F10 having codes 59 to 68 decimal. The other set shows F1 to F3 having codes 113 to 115 with other codes not in the same sequence for the other F keys. For key F4 the code is 190 and legend is AudioMicMute.
Thus it seems that the alternate F key codes have been used presumably in a recent update. While I could regress it is not worth while!
I checked the codes in use on my Think Pad using ‘sudo showkey -k’ and found that the
F keys returned the set corresponding to AudioMicMute (113-115) etc. I checked the
key codes for a desktop USB keyboard and a lap-top running Mint Cinnamon 22 and found that they are the Fn key set (59-68). All the systems have been recently updated/upgraded.
I am such a poor typist that anything requiring two keys is a mantrap. Hence I prefer the mouse for manipulating windows. I prefer vi over Emacs for the same reason… any editor that requires a two handed typist is beyond me.
Other more adept people seem to love shortcuts.
When I worked for apple and testing new applicants for posts, one trick I set them was to give them a task to do but without using a mouse, had already disabled it. They either know the mac system and shortcuts or they were not suitable. These were not new recruits but for either technician or teaching posts. It got harder the higher up they appied for.
Had it done to me, went for a teaching post at one place, they said teach us lotus 123 for windows but they failed to supply mice for the computers, there were 3 computers… no problem as at that stage the old menu still worked so pressing the slash key (/) brought it up then you could either right key to select or use the letters in the menu… no problem had spent 5 years teaching the old version so very good at keyboard.
Now i use the mouse lazy !
But to answer the question
I would fail that test.
Shortcuts are beyond my memory capacity.
and
they dont fit with “Make Linux Simple Again”
Not sure how they would help anyway, hard to shortcut a sudo command… except for opening terminal on a screen when I have hidden the icon to stop users playing thats all I use. Save, copy, print, close etc I use the mouse. But I do more with GU than anything else. On my tablet I never shortcut althought they are the same commands
You could alias sudo
The one thing i really need to remember, but cant, is how to switch to a new console… you know those F1 toF6 things… but is it Alt or CtrlAlt or ShiftAlt ?
The old idea was to paste a strip on the keyboard.
I taught wordperfect for DOS and the only way I could do it was with the function key strip. Every keyboard had one and they ware also printed very large on the posters on the wall so i could cheat and look at them if asked a question.
@nevj :
Hi Neville, 
To the best of my knowledge it´s: CtrlAlt and the F keys.
CtrlAlt and F7 gives me my desktop back. 
Cheers from Rosika 
I have to press “Fn” to get the alternative function on my Thinkpad keyboards in Pop!_OS…
e.g. F1 does “F1” - if I want to use it to MUTE sound - I press Fn+F1, and Fn+F2 to decrease volume, and Fn+F3 to increase volume…
I hardly ever use the F1-F12 keys - other than Audio - I should investigate have Fn “locked” on…
I have Thinkpad Keyboard II (USB / BT / Wireless II) on my desktop system running Pop!_OS 22.04, and an actual Thinkpad (E495) running Pop!_OS…
Actually - no - I don’t want to lock Fn to “On” because my desktop machine is also my Synergy server to 2 Macbooks - and I need F1-F12 there (e.g. Shift+Opt+F3, F4 to take a screen shot).
I’m mostly okay with multiple key keystrokes (like MacOS screenshot) - but still prefer to use the X Select Buffer to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V for copy / paste (and it drives me insane when that doesn’t work!).
It sounds to me like you might have “Fn” key toggled if F4 doesn’t do “F4”. On my Thinkpad keyboards, F4 also doubles as the mute mic key via Fn (i.e. Fn+F4 will mute my microphone).
There’s a setting for that in BIOS. FN lock or something like that…
I’d hate to press FN+Ctrl+Alt+F# 
But that’s not a frequent need on my side, however the 2 panel file managers used to have F5 for copy files… That would be FN+F5 this way, which drives me nuts 
So I set the Fn lock to normal F# keys, and accept the need to press FN+F3 for volume up for example.
Emacs = Escape Meta Alt Control Shift
That’s my thought about shortcut keys. I’m lazy. Give me a point’n clicky interface.
For me function keys f10 f12 or tab to get into bios to change boot order. Shame its not always standard and if its a wireless keyboard the system does not always see the keyboard to do that.