MIE: Creating a Keyboard Shortcut for the Terminal

One of the things that striked me when first reading about the Mobile Internet Experience software was that the Linux command line interface is disabled on the HP Mini 1000 Mi. I could not really imagine what was meant by disabled, until I had the chance to check out the Mini Mi myself.

To start a program you are supposed to click on the Start New Program button on the home screen and than choose the application you want to run from a tabbed interface. You won't find a terminal emulator on any of the tabs, which does not mean that you cannot launch a terminal window.

One simple method is to hit ALT+F2 and than enter xterm or gnome-terminal and click on Run to launch a terminal. An alternative method is to add a keyboard shortcut for launching a terminal window, as demonstrated in this screencast.

To create a keyboard shortcut for the GNOME terminal emulator click on Settings on the start screen of Mobile Internet Experience, than click on the Advanced tab, and click on the Keyboard Shortcut button. In the keyboard shortcut settings window scroll down to the entry Run a Terminal click on this entry and enter your preferred key combination. That's it. Now you can launch a terminal via the keyboard shortcut you just entered.