The Secret Microbe

Update: not quite right the first time through, now corrected.
Update 2: This may not work on all keyboards. See the comments.
Update 3:  Fixed spacing.  See the comments.

The KDE developers probably have strong religious reasons for preventing the windows key from popping up the KDE menu by default. Whatever. For me, using the windows key to launch a menu is too habitual to give up, so I wanted to reconfigure KDE accordingly. Lots of guides exist online to do exactly that, but it seems most are not up-to-date for Kubuntu 8.10. I found the following command line procedure to work:

cat << EOF >> $HOME/.xmodmaprc
remove mod4 = Super_L
keysym Super_L = F14
EOF

cat << EOF >> $HOME/.kde/Autostart/remap_keys.sh
#!/bin/sh
xmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprc
EOF

chmod 755 $HOME/.kde/Autostart/remap_keys.sh

$HOME/.kde/Autostart/remap_keys.sh

The first command creates a file called .xmodmaprc telling X windows to stop using the Left Superkey, aka the Windows key, as a meta key. Instead, it should be mapped to the F14 key. The second set of commands creates a script which will call the remapping in .xmodmaprc every time KDE starts up. The third command makes that script executable, and the fourth command runs the remapping for the current KDE session so it’s not necessary to restart KDE before enjoying the changes. Finally, it’s necessary to go into the KDE control panel (called “System Settings” in Kubuntu) and set the keyboard shortcut for the KDE menu. In the control panel, select “Keyboard & Mouse”, then select “Keyboard Shortcuts”, then edit the shortcuts for the “Plasma Workspace” KDE component. There you’ll find the shortcut setting for the “Application Launcher”. Set it to your windows key and you’re done. Enjoy the illicit pleasure of driving KDE with a windows key!

Of course the very first thing I had to do with my new laptop was disinfect it from the non-free OS installed by default.  Fortunately, it’s incredibly easy to do.  The 160GB drive came already partitioned into a 2gb, a 40gb, and a 110gb piece.  The 2gb piece contains a recovery partition that can install a fresh copy of windows onto the laptop.  The first time the laptop boots, Windows gets installed to the 40gb partition, which is formatted as NTFS.  The third, large partition is free to install your favorite alternative OS.

Although I’ve been a long-time SuSEaholic, I decided to give Ubuntu a try on the MSI Wind, or rather Kubuntu since I’m not ready to give up my KDE  Even though the MSI Wind lacks a CD or DVD drive, Kubuntu is dead easy to install.  You simply download and run the Unetbootin program in windows, select Kubuntu netboot and target the C: drive, and reboot.  voila!  The kubuntu installer will start on reboot.  As for partitioning, I chose to delete the 110gb partition and create a 2gb swap partition and use the remaining for /.  Since the installer downloads all packages during the install, be sure to have a reliable network connection and choose a fast, local mirror site (Use the option to manually specify a URL, located at the top of the mirror selection list).  The full list of official ubuntu mirrors is here.