Various items that are good to know.

1.  Received exchange for 160M contest.
    The exchange you receive from a DX station is not well defined in the
    contest rules.  When you work a DX station in the 160M contest, enter
    a number after the RST in the received field (eg. 5991) and KB will
    handle it from there.

2.  Keyboard conflicts with SuSE 10.2.
    In their infinite wisdom, the Gnome people decided to make the WINDOZE
    keys on a PC, and the Apple keys on the Mac, bring up the Gnome main
    menu.  That menu will activate even while KB is running, if one of
    those keys is pressed accidently.  Unfortunately, it remains hidden by
    the KB screen, so the user has no idea what's going on.  Even worse,
    once that happens, that menu intercepts all future key presses, giving
    the appearance that KB is hung (it isn't).  Press ESC to get rid of the
    Gnome menu that you can't see hiding behind the KB screen, and your
    keyboard will resume functioning correctly.

    The Gnome people did not include these keys in their list of short-cut
    keys, so they cannot be turned off easily.  However, they can be
    disabled as follows:

         Under More Applications, start the Gnome Configuration Editor.
         Pick Apps, then Metacity, then General, and uncheck the box for
         Enable_Windows_Keys.

    Another keyboard conflict is with the F12 key.  Instead of getting the
    KB Update feature, you get "Beagle Search".  At least "Beagle Search"
    comes up in front of the KB screen so you can see what's going on.
    Uninstall "Beagle Search" to eliminate this problem.

2a. Note: They came to their senses in openSuSE 10.3, so these problems no
    longer exist.  Let's hope it stays that way in 11.0.

3.  DVK problem with SuSE 10.2.
    Something changed in Gnome Sound that prevents KB from stopping a
    DVK message that is in progress.  If they don't fix this in SuSE 10.3
    I may have to abandon Gnome Sound and write my own KB sound system.

3a. Note: Gnome Sound doesn't work at all in openSuSE 10.3.  The DVK
    now uses SoX. Problem solved.

4.  Floppy drive problem with SuSE 10.2.
    Something is very broken with the floppy drive system in SuSE 10.2.
    Disk writes now take forever.  Don't use the KB backup to floppy
    feature until they fix whatever they did.

4a. Note: They helped this a little in openSuSE 10.3, but it's still
    nearly useless.  No such problem on FreeBSD.

5.  Font problem with Ubuntu 7.04.
    Ubuntu comes with a very restricted fontset, which forces KB to make do
    with what it can find.  The result isn't too bad, except for the "0"
    and "O" keys, which are indistinguishable (not good for UBN's).

6.  Kernel module compilation problem with Ubuntu 7.04.
    The Ubuntu distribution disk does not include what is necessary to
    compile the kb_bells kernel module.  KB can be used without it, but the
    informational sounds will not be produced.

7.  KB bell sounds coming out of the sound card.
    Open the volume control, and turn down the volume for the PC speaker
    source.  The bell sounds will then only come out of the internal
    PC speaker.  The sound card can then be used for the DVK audio
    without also transmitting the bells.

8.  USB memory stick problem with Linux.
    Linux requires root priviledges (or the Gnome automounter) to
    mount/unmount a USB memory stick.  If you want to use the KB backup to
    memory stick feature, you should mount it before starting KB.  Do not
    remove the memory stick until you exit KB and unmount it.  No such
    problem on FreeBSD.

Author: Walt Legowski, WA1KKM
E-Mail: wa1kkm@k2ct.net
