Infinity USB Foot Control Setup

Support
1

Hello everyone,
My apologies; I wasn’t sure which sub-category to place this post into. I’m still fairly new to Manjaro–and to Linux in general–and I’m still very much un-techy (but I like to learn how to do things, which is why I wanted to try Manjaro). I’m taking a transcription course which I had started before switching to Linux, and have recently come across a program for manual speech transcription called Parlatype that is under AUR .

When I was working on my course prior to switching to Linux, I was using a foot pedal with the software the course recommended. The foot pedal helped to pause, rewind, or fast-forward the file while I was typing. I found that Parlatype has a way to work with the foot pedal that I have (Infinity In-USB-2). https://www.parlatype.xyz/footpedals/footpedals.html Currently, I’m having to switch back and forth between the audio player (whether it be Audacity, VLC, or Parlatype) and LibreOffice Writer but finding it to be rather time-consuming.

I did some searching around and found out how to create the udev file, but I don’t understand what to do after pasting the content. I used Vim–not sure if that’s necessary info or not.

I also came across this page https://catswhisker.xyz/log/2018/8/27/use_vecinfinity_usb_foot_pedal_as_a_keyboard_under_linux/ but, unfortunately, I don’t understand it either. I tried plugging my pedal in and typed dmesg in the terminal, but this came up → dmesg: read kernel buffer failed: Operation not permitted
I typed lsusb and I’m guessing this is it right? → Bus 001 Device 017: ID 05f3:00ff PI Engineering, Inc. VEC Footpedal

So this is all a bit over my head. But I guess before I go any further, I need to know a few things:

  • Can the foot pedal even be installed on Manjaro?
  • If so, will it be possible to have it set so that I can use it without having to switch between programs?
  • If not, does anyone know of an easier way, or am I completely using the wrong distro to try to do something like this?

I hope all of this makes sense and I apologize for the story-length post :upside_down_face:
Thank you in advance!

2

Dmesg is run with sudo.
Otherwise, what is written in the guide should work ok with manjaro too.

4 Likes
3

Seems correct. It is the samevendor and device ID as in the linked website.

I am not sure, but I think it might be possible. You could try (for example) with the key codes for:

KEY_FORWARD
KEY_PLAYPAUSE
KEY_REWIND

From linux/include/uapi/linux/input-event-codes.h at master · torvalds/linux · GitHub (linked in the instructions you mention above)

2 Likes
4

Thank you both! I got started running with sudo and that did help move me forward. It’ll take me a bit of time, but I’ll let you know where I end up :slight_smile: