This is going to be a fairly niche post, so I will make it clear right away: If you are not using Hyprland on Fedora 43, you can close this post and move on with your day. Now, those of you who are using Hyprland on Fedora 43 are likely doing so via the widely linked and recommended solopasha/hyprland COPR. However, that COPR is no longer maintained, and when running updates, you might have seen errors like these: ...
The problem Window management for GUI operating systems has been with us for decades, but it still feels a bit broken to me. Yes, everyone has their preferences and not everyone needs to run as many programs as I do at times, but there is something principally broken about having a bunch of windows stacked on top of each other and trying to Alt-Tab to the right one at all times. And I’m not the only one to think that. ...
The Problem Recently, my Keychron K8 keyboard has died (PCB 💀), so I started hunting for a new keyboard. Another Keychron was out of the question, so I decided to give Epomaker a try. I stumbled into a B-stock Epomaker Galaxy80 and decided to give it a shot. I am very happy with the feel of the keyboard, typing feels much better than the K8, at least to me. However, I ran into a problem in linux (Fedora Workstation, although this is not distro-specific): I was unable to use the F-row (F1 - F12), so that Alt + F4 would not close the window, F11 would not trigger full screen etc. When I used the online keyboard testers, it would register keys/commands such as “Files”, “Calculator”, “Volume Up/Down” etc.: I searched the keyboard manual, thinking it must be some sort of an Fn lock being activated, but there does not seem to be a feature like that on my keyboard. Even worse, using the Fn key + one of the F-row keys was not triggering the actual F-row key either. I had no (useful) way to use my F-row keys! This issue has been reported with many other Epomaker keyboards, such as EP84, TH80, RT80, RT100 or GMK87, but also with other brands (including some Keychrons). The good news is, the fix should be the same for all of them! ...