Hey, long-time Dvorak user here, almost as long as a Linux user.
When I start playing a new game, I usally just go with defaults. Some games (like all Valve games) do a good job of using keyscan codes for bindings and mapping them to the layout. If that’s not the case the game is likely to be incorretly using the keyscan codes, or just using the OS’s key events. If that’s the case, I will just force qwerty with setxkbmap us and restart the game. After a few hours, I try to rebind keys for dvorak. Persoally, I like to change keyboardings to use Tribe’s ESDF layout instead of WASD anyway.
If you are using wayland for your display, setxkbmap is great since most games run in Xwayland mode, so native apps will still be in Dvorak.
I don’t really need to type much in games anyway now, so I don’t mind keeping with qwerty bindings. I play Starcraft 2 this way.
The worst experience I can recall is Natural Selection 2, which its game engine refused to bind non-alphanumeric keys like ‘,’ 😵💫… But that was playing with Windows, would probably work with Linux if the game was still alive.
Hey, long-time Dvorak user here, almost as long as a Linux user.
When I start playing a new game, I usally just go with defaults. Some games (like all Valve games) do a good job of using keyscan codes for bindings and mapping them to the layout. If that’s not the case the game is likely to be incorretly using the keyscan codes, or just using the OS’s key events. If that’s the case, I will just force qwerty with
setxkbmap usand restart the game. After a few hours, I try to rebind keys for dvorak. Persoally, I like to change keyboardings to use Tribe’s ESDF layout instead of WASD anyway.If you are using wayland for your display,
setxkbmapis great since most games run in Xwayland mode, so native apps will still be in Dvorak.I don’t really need to type much in games anyway now, so I don’t mind keeping with qwerty bindings. I play Starcraft 2 this way.
The worst experience I can recall is Natural Selection 2, which its game engine refused to bind non-alphanumeric keys like ‘,’ 😵💫… But that was playing with Windows, would probably work with Linux if the game was still alive.