Language Selection

English French German Italian Portuguese Spanish

System76 Launches The Launch Configurable Keyboard

Filed under
Linux
Hardware

For months Linux hardware vendor System76 has been teasing their own in-house designed and manufactured keyboard with open-source firmware and various innovations. Today the embargo lifts on the System76 Launch Configurable Keyboard so we can share more about this new open hardware product.

The System76 Launch Configurable Keyboard is their latest product being designed and manufactured from their facility in Denver, Colorado -- the second after their Thelio line of desktop computers. The keyboard base is an open-source design and milled out of aluminum. The CAD design and drawings are open-source on GitHub for those with the necessary equipment to fabricate your own. The Launch Keyboard also makes use of their own, open-source PCB design that supports individual RGB LED key backlighting and other features.

Read more

Also: System76 unveils open source 'Launch Configurable Keyboard' for Linux, Windows, and macOS that is made in the USA

System76 releases the open source Launch Configurable Keyboard

  • System76 releases the open source Launch Configurable Keyboard

    Ready for your next keyboard? How about one that's properly open source and looks quite fantastic? System76 has today properly revealed and released the Launch Configurable Keyboard.

    Sticking to their ethos, they've launched the Launch as a fully open source unit. This includes the hardware (certified by the OSHWA), firmware and configuration tooling all as open source and firmware updates can be done directly through LVFS but it's not forced - it's up to users if they want to update the firmware.

Meet System76’s First Mechanical Keyboard

  • Meet System76’s First Mechanical Keyboard

    System76 is best known for selling Linux laptops and developing the Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS distro, but keyboards?

    Today (May 12) is launch date for the System76 ‘Launch’, a compact and highly configurable mechanical keyboard which — fact fans — is entirely open source. Schematics for the PCB and chassis, and firmware code are all freely available.

    Naturally System76’s first keyboard offers tight integration with Pop!_OS and its novel tiling features. But you don’t need to run Pop!_OS to use it. This keyboard and its desktop companion app work on Linux (naturally) but also macOS and Windows too.

The Nerdiest Keyboard Around

  • Launch from System76 – The Nerdiest Keyboard Around

    Per the press documentation, the Launch is “engineered to be comfortable, fully customizable” and make day-to-day life with a keyboard more efficent. Users of Pop!_OS will particularly benefit from this, but the Launch also works on other distros, Mac, and Windows. It’s handmade in Denver, Colorado, USA, consisting of an aluminum chassis, a custom PCB, and rubber feet.

Bobby Borisov and Michael Tunnell

  • System76 Launch is an Open Source Mechanical Keyboard

    The System76 Launch configurable keyboard is designed to provide the user controlled keyboard experience, with open source mechanical and electrical design. It has open source firmware and associated software, and a large number of user configuration opportunities.

    Linux PC company System76 has been selling laptop and desktop computers with Linux software for over a decade. The company also develops one of the most popular Linux distribution in the market named Pop!_OS. But now, PC manufacturer System76 is becoming an accessory maker too.

  • System76's New Launch Keyboard With Configurable Layers - Front Page Linux

    System76 has announced today the launch of the Launch Keyboard. This is a configurable keyboard designed and made in-house by System76. They say that it is “engineered to be comfortable, fully customizable, and make your workflow more efficient”. This mechanical keyboard has a lot of interesting features that I am very curious to try out such as the Split Spacebar offering a unique customization option, ability to easily remap keys with their configuration app and multiple layers functionality providing many ways to personalize it.

    You may be wondering “what is so special about a mechanical keyboard?”, a few years ago I was wondering that too. I have been using a mechanical keyboard for a little while now and I can say with confidence that I will never go back. For years, I thought it was just a hipster thing to want a fancy keyboard vs the $10 keyboards I had been using most of my computing life. I never truly understood the value but that’s really just because I had never taken the leap into getting one since they tend to have a relatively high price attached to them.

System76’s Configurable Mechanical Keyboard is a Dream Come True

  • System76’s Configurable Mechanical Keyboard is a Dream Come True for Open Source Enthusiasts

    System76 is popularly known for its Pop!_OS Linux distribution and its laptops/desktop offerings tailored for Linux.

    While we already had some of the details when System76 teased its open-source ‘Launch’ keyboard, it has been finally unveiled to the world.

    This is System76’s first accessory offering, along with the laptops/desktops available. I’m sure that the new open source mechanical keyboard is just the start. And it is going to be a treat for open-source enthusiasts!

    Here, let me briefly share the key highlights of this open-source configurable keyboard and what I think about it.

System76 Launches New Mechanical Keyboard

  • System76 Launches New Mechanical Keyboard

    Designed to “place control back into your hands,” the Launch keyboard lets you remap keys, swap out keycaps, and configure multiple layers to suit your needs. You can select from “jade” switches for a definitive key click or “royal” switches for a muted clack and cycle through a range of LED patterns and colors.

System76 Launch is an open-source hardware...

  • System76 Launch is an open-source hardware, configurable keyboard - CNX Software

    System76 Launch keyboard ships with alternatives keycaps with different colors, a key puller, and USB cables to connect to the host device. The four USB ports allow you to connect devices like thumb drives or USB SSD’s to the computer/phone/board via the keyboard.

    The QMK firmware running on the USB keyboard is also compatible with some other keyboards, and you can also access the KiCAD hardware design files, and CAD files for the chassis on Launch’s Github repo, while the Keyboard Configurator is part of pop-os repo.

祓瑳浥㘷唠癮楥獬椠獴鲀慌湵档胢₝敋批慯摲System76 Unveils its “Launch” Keyboard

  • System76 Unveils its “Launch” Keyboard

    The open-source darling, System76, is about to launch the Launch keyboard and you can pre-order yours now.

    System76 loves to push every envelope possible. They’ve created one of the finest desktop computers on the market, have an outstanding lineup of laptops, and their servers are all top-notch. Soon, users will also be able to purchase an open-source keyboard, called Launch.

    The Launch keyboard is a highly customizable piece of hardware with firmware based on QMK and even includes a space bar that’s been split into two keys, so you can customize one to serve a different purpose. Speaking of keys, the Launch is lit with RGB lights that can also be customized.

Things We Love About Our Brand New, Fully Configurable...

Why does this keyboard have TWO spacebars?

Hands-on: The System76 "Launch" keyboard! (Full Review)

The System76 Launch Keyboard though..

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

More in Tux Machines

digiKam 7.7.0 is released

After three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. Read more

Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand

Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future Tech

The metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. Read more

today's howtos

  • How to install go1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04 – NextGenTips

    In this tutorial, we are going to explore how to install go on Ubuntu 22.04 Golang is an open-source programming language that is easy to learn and use. It is built-in concurrency and has a robust standard library. It is reliable, builds fast, and efficient software that scales fast. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel-type systems enable flexible and modular program constructions. Go compiles quickly to machine code and has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. In this guide, we are going to learn how to install golang 1.19beta on Ubuntu 22.04. Go 1.19beta1 is not yet released. There is so much work in progress with all the documentation.

  • molecule test: failed to connect to bus in systemd container - openQA bites

    Ansible Molecule is a project to help you test your ansible roles. I’m using molecule for automatically testing the ansible roles of geekoops.

  • How To Install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9 - idroot

    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on AlmaLinux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, MongoDB is a high-performance, highly scalable document-oriented NoSQL database. Unlike in SQL databases where data is stored in rows and columns inside tables, in MongoDB, data is structured in JSON-like format inside records which are referred to as documents. The open-source attribute of MongoDB as a database software makes it an ideal candidate for almost any database-related project. This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the MongoDB NoSQL database on AlmaLinux 9. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

  • An introduction (and how-to) to Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck. - Invidious
  • Self-host a Ghost Blog With Traefik

    Ghost is a very popular open-source content management system. Started as an alternative to WordPress and it went on to become an alternative to Substack by focusing on membership and newsletter. The creators of Ghost offer managed Pro hosting but it may not fit everyone's budget. Alternatively, you can self-host it on your own cloud servers. On Linux handbook, we already have a guide on deploying Ghost with Docker in a reverse proxy setup. Instead of Ngnix reverse proxy, you can also use another software called Traefik with Docker. It is a popular open-source cloud-native application proxy, API Gateway, Edge-router, and more. I use Traefik to secure my websites using an SSL certificate obtained from Let's Encrypt. Once deployed, Traefik can automatically manage your certificates and their renewals. In this tutorial, I'll share the necessary steps for deploying a Ghost blog with Docker and Traefik.