My keyboard is bugging out on 12.04 ubuntu

Question

I have a saitek Eclipse 2 keyboard

You can switch lights from blue to red to purple to nonw. However, when ever i change the colour on it, it changes color yet it also does some strange command. It, i believe, left clicks or right cliks, or a combination of the two when i change colors. it also sumtimes makes my screen freezes.

Why is this happening? To i need to update my drivers or sumthing? because i think i updated all my drivers with installation. And theabove problem do not happen on windows 7

Answer 1

It seems that other people with the Saitek Elcipse 2 have observed and reported similar problems as recently as 2011, where the special keys fire a mouse event. I haven't found any evidence of a resolution. A thread at UbuntuForums documents the problem, and notes a workaround:

But the best workaround till this is resolved is to press all the mouse buttons, which is left right and middle click (no need to press other buttons for gaming mice). When i do that workaround after changing colors everything goes back to normal till I change colors again. It seems that the light button is sending mouse presses.

A bug report on Launchpad confirms the problem for Maverick and Natty, but based on your experience there must be a regression in Precise as well.

You should report the bug and, meanwhile, you might try the workaround above. It's not a fix, but hopefully a future update will resolve the problem.

Answer 2

I also have the same keyboard and it does similar things. I would attempt to contact Ubuntu and see if they could possibly fix it (not likely). But, it seems to me if you change the colors prior to the ubuntu load screen, then it won't be glitchy. And you don't really need to change colors!