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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Can I mod my Thinkpad Keyboard to work in another laptop? (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have a Clevo NV41MZ, which is sold by Novacustom and they, together with 3mdeb develop Coreboot for the Clevo Laptops.

Its pretty great as their Distribution (Dasharo) as well as Heads run on it, I guess theirs is better optimized and it looks secure and feature complete.

So very great laptop, also did a Benchmark against my T495 and was shocked about literally twice the performance! Its pretty loud but Dasharo actually fixes that.

Keyboard problem

So... bad part, the keyboard.

Its crap, not unusable, but my T495 is the best Keyboard I ever used. Lower travel than on my (also corebootable) T430, nice rubbery keys etc.

Interesting though, you cant replace the keycaps, while you can on the Clevo boards.

Also Novacustom sells the Clevo keyboards and you can get custom engraving, layout, font, everything, you can literally design your own keyboard, its pretty damn cool.

But... they keyboard is still a huge deal, and as I only want to have one Laptop (lol you wish) it should be good for writing Bachelor thesis stuff on it.

Keyboard to USB

There is a like 10 years old video of some guy hacking such an internal keyboard to USB, sniffing the keypresses and all.

The easy solution here would be to get a USB Thinkpad keyboard and disassemble it, but its costy and not sure about the quality and compact laptop size.

Keyboard 1 to Keyboard 2

So I imagine it pretty badly, two proprietary connectors talking gibberish and very differently, and you need to solder two random ebay parts together and hope it doesnt need translation.

I imagine you could remove the need for the arduino, as it doesnt need USB.

Maybe the OS could handle the keyboard layout changes?

Is this possible? I imagine getting a T495 keyboard and putting it in my NV41MZ, needs some cutting but should work?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Technically, you can try, but I doubt it'll work ootb even if the connectors are the same. It would be kinda easier to use smth like an arduino/rp2040 board and connect it to one if thr unpopulated USBs on the board (check if there's a schematic available, they often leave stuff like ribbon cable connectors for, day, a smort card reader, which is basically USB but 3v3 power)