Whilst working on a tri-national contract I was offered and accepted a touch typing course. For about six weeks we duly attended a specially rigged classroom with an electric typewriter hidden under a box which rested on the desk. We duly reached, pressed, reached pressed until (for me) I gained a proficiency of around 30 wpm. Since then I've come across various means of increasing typing speed, the most unusual being the one handed keyboards, if that's the right word that 'shape' letters using the five fingers. Another one that kind of made more sense (to me) was Dvorak. Keyboard layout for efficiency rather than untangling stuck typewriter keys seems quite sensible. Google shows up many tales of people doubling their typing speed by training on Dvorak. I wanted to give it a try after reading this. Equally, I didn't want to go buy a new keyboard. Heck they are expensive once you move off the seven UK pound Dell QWERTY ones! I sort of figured that Linux wouldn't let a simple keyboard mapping get in the way of fun and sure enough I found /etc/sysconfig/keyboard with it's line

KEYTABLE = "uk"  

which it was suggested, changing to

KEYTABLE = "dvorak"  

might help remap the keys. I guess that works sub X11, anyway rebooting didn't change the map; though logging on was kind of fun. Guess how many times I tried using the Dvorak mapping before I went back and tried the QWERTY one?

More searching brought up

$ sudo setxkbmap dvorak  

and even more importantly

$sudo setxkbmap gb  

Except... with my old head on, that should be

$;dkbvnmar un

If you see what I mean!

Having a nice way to swap meant I could swap out and practise as and when, which I did using Klavaro which is kind of nice and just the sort of rote learning that works for me, especially since I've been using QWERTY for ... a couple of years. I ran through the first dozen exercises without too many slip ups, although it is kind of easy to let the mind wander!

I'll keep at it until I get a nasty shock one day and drift into Dvorak mode when I (think I) should be in QWERTY mode! I'll let you know