So, I know I just made a post about how I got a new keyboard… But I picked up another one.

76 Systems

So, why? Well, that ergo Q8 I bought gives me arm pain. I did give it a solid chance, even putting some better switches in it. But I just couldn’t my arms used to it. So I’m sending it back.

In its place, I picked up a System76 Launch Lite.

The Launch is a neat looking keyboard. The Lite version is just missing the f keys (and the 10 gigabit usb hub), but costs a fair bit less. And since I already have the switches I wanted, I picked up the kit version¹ (and saved even more cash).

After a while of pulling switches (box jades) from the Q8, I had a board.

It even works!

Software

This being a modern keyboard, there’s software. At first, I thought this was going to be a pain. System76 is an open source Linux company. That tends to mean very strong opinions on things. But… System76 doesn’t seem to be that way. A breath of fresh air. Their Launch configurator has both Windows, and Mac versions (both intel and Apple Silicon (and signed with an Apple dev cert)).

It is a bit weird seeing a GTK app running on MacOS, but it works pretty well.

You can change a fair amount here. Key mappings, layers (up to four), and the RGB LEDs. You can even have different RGB settings per layer. Everything is saved to the keyboard, so it’s pretty set and forget.

Thoughts

So far, I really like it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the split space bars, but I’m def going to get rid of caps lock (they give you extra keycaps, just for that). It is a little pricy of a board, but being well built, and made in the US🇺🇸 will do that.

I like it.