 Thank you. So hey, my name is Andre. I'm a software developer at Red Hat, also a student right here at this very faculty. And I'm a huge keyboard nerd, as you might have noticed by now. As a disclaimer, I'm gonna use the P word, so watch out, preference. Everything in this hobby is about preference. You may not agree with all that I'm saying and all this stuff. You may like different things and that's all right. There might be more interesting flavors but people still like vanilla, all this kind of stuff. As to why mechanical keyboards, let me start with this. How many of you guys do have a mechanical keyboard by a show of hands? Okay. How many of these have a Cherry MX switches? Quite a lot, all right. Luckily it's pretty many. So why mechanical keyboards? Well, options. More specifically, options and looks because the keycaps are compatible between each other. You can mix and match all this kind of stuff. Options and feel, which depends both on the switches because the switches have a different mechanism and stuff and also cases because there's cases designed to be more light on the touch and stuff, all this kind of weird stuff in this hobby. The sound, there are plenty of people just obsessed with the talk as they call some kind of sound and stuff. Options, layouts, plenty of layouts and firmware because most of the, I'd say more expensive as well but especially the more open source split, weird kind of keyboards use open source QMK firmware which is you can set up anything you want. And yeah, open source because some of the keyboards just are available anywhere. I mean on GitHub or something and you can just order the PCBs and build yourself. Switches, I use this amazing graph with emojis combined with each other. This is for these little things I'm gonna pass. Try and, you can try and test this, see which switch you like as well. There's the cherry, the hole because it's a rabbit hole once you go into the enthusiast switches and then there's silent switches as well and there's a linear one, the tactile ones and the clicky ones. There's no clicky silent one. That's how you tell which way to orient this. So I'm gonna pass this along and good luck. But yeah, to sort of help you with this, the main difference you should be basically looking for for the linear system, the non-cherry ones are usually more smooth while the tactile ones have a stronger bump and the clicky ones just use a different click mechanism so it's not much of a rattle. It's more like a pure click. So some common misconceptions for switches. There's this, a lot of saying like red is for gaming, blue is for typing, brown is for everything else or for everyone. Most of these things are basically just some things to get you to actually buy some keyboard and figure it out by yourself. It's all about preference. I use reds or linear for typing and programming all that stuff. It's not that it's gonna help you in any way. It's just preference. It all depends on which one you like and not everyone is able to just go to your store and try a bunch of switches or order like this switch tester. Then it's kind of difficult to help anyone because everyone has a different taste. So then this sort of bullshit was made up to help you just go for it and buy a single switch. Often then cherry MX switches. There's this thing that, there's this issue that cherry had a patent until 2014. So there weren't any other brands making these switches in the same standards as nowadays there are. And so cherry instead of innovating on newer switches and more like smoother switches, better switches, they sort of just went with marketing that we're the original ones. We're the ones that everyone is copying and German engineering. So it has to be the best, right? And it's sort of falling off slowly but people still have this sort of mindset that the others are a clone that can't be good and they're Chinese. But yeah, nowadays Gateron and other brands most importantly innovate a lot and provide some better switches as well. And also the mechanical means loud. This is a mechanical keyboard. I don't believe anyone from the backside can hear this. Nevermind, I'm out. But yeah, there's this sort of misconception that mechanical has to be loud but there are specific silent switches which are even more silent than your usual membrane keyboard. And then the color coding which is just something that works for the basic red, brown, blue and other switches but other brands don't really follow it once you get to do more enthusiast switches. So also then the options are in layouts. You might have seen your usual 100% keyboard. I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand and then lower it the moment I go too small for you guys with the layout, all right? So everyone raise your hand. All right. Does anyone need a 20% okay? So 96, that's just, okay. My hand, just editing keys sort of squashed together with the numpad. A TKL, it's just the tanky list without the numpad. This is an FRL, F-Roll-Less. But watch out, this one also has a blocker instead of the Windows key because some people think that's a very awkward place to have a key. So this one is a F-Roll-Less, Binky-Less, Tanky-Less actually. Then there's a 75% which doesn't have the usual function keys at all or the editing keys. 65% which is without the function as well. That's quite a lot of people, okay. Now we're 12 into the 60% without arrow keys. You have to use the function layers to sort of use other stuff. There's the Ariesu and stuff for like slightly more ergonomic boards. The Ortole, which, okay, three more hands or something, okay. That guy has a split that doesn't count. Then there's the splits. Usually what people end up with are smaller sizes because once you go for ergonomics, you also don't want to stretch your fingers as much. So you use layers to sort of do all kinds of weird stuff and then also you can 3D print some cases. So you get stuff like this or this is what I use at work basically. It looks like a skateboard. Yeah, it's like a skateboard. And then you need manual for your manual basically for the layout you're using at your keyboard. But don't tell me you can't use a 40% if you use this. And you only use two fingers, just come on. Now your thumbs can actually do something and, yeah, it's manageable. And it's not a joke. These are some kind of jokey layouts, but the 40% actually work. So there's plenty of memes to go around, but yeah. And that would be mostly it for me. Thank you. So any questions? Preference again, have two. How many keyboards do you have at home? I think I'm at eight right now. Oh yeah, I have, how many keyboards do I have at home? I have about eight keyboards. So I can have one for each day of the week. Obviously. But yeah, you can sort of see the journey I went, you know, smaller, smaller, and. What if you just have two peaks, more code? Exactly. What is the best switch? What's the best switch? Preference. Mix switches as in they have more. Okay. Some people use heavier springs on like the space bar and stuff, but that's not very common. I would say most people just go roll with, you know, full keyboard with a single switch in the community. What are the best switches? What do I think the best switch is, right? I'm a big linear kind of guy. So I would say like maybe Gator oil kinks are my favorite right now. By the way, from the people that tested the switch I'm not sure how far it got. How many of you preferred the cherry ones? Okay. I think that answers a lot of your questions. About cherry. There was a. Yeah. How can you get a tactile effect in the. In what switch? In the switch. In the switch. It's one of the few more. And can you make some operation more keys with your feet? Okay. Like a clutch. Vim clutch. Okay. I've heard of the Vim clutch that people use a Vim clutch like for, you know, using your driving to switch modes between in Vim and stuff. But I have no clue how those work. So I can't use. I'm not sure. So why can't you swim? All right. If you guys have any, okay. When you switch from keyboard to keyboard, right? How much time do you need to adjust the new layout? As long as the boards are different enough, my brain just clacks. It works immediately. But as long as if the layout is sort of similar, like if I've split, switch between the split and a normal keyboard, it just works automatically. But yeah, if there's like, I have an ortho linear as well. And that sort of messes with my brain because it's similar to a normal keyboard and a split as well sort of. And yeah, that doesn't work too much. But yeah. The non-mechanicals aren't usually linear. So they're... Exactly, but... Oh yeah, I should have been just repeating the questions. Sorry. So again, the question was, what's the differences between linear and... Yeah, yeah. Usually non-mechanical are not exactly linear. They're mostly membrane. Like membrane, I actually more tactile-ish because you have to pierce through the sort of, you know, membrane bump. So they're more tactile-ish. So yeah, the difference is in the field, but they're also mechanical overall, just don't feel as mushy, which can happen with the silent ones because they're actually like some rubber inside the switch to actually make on silent, but they're still way off in field compared to normal switch, like membrane, I mean. I have not tried. My girlfriend did some artisan pickups, just like a little toast or something could do those, but I haven't tried any pretty printed stuff. I did like a keychain stuff you can take at my booth, by the way. And yeah, all the other questions you could also, I could answer at the booth in E, all the way down the way. So I think we're out of time. We still have time. Okay, never mind. Well, thank you.