I decided it was time for a new keyboard and mouse. Being the pro-Bluetooth® person that I am, I decided on the Microsoft Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth®. My reasoning was, I already own the first version of Microsoft's Bluetooth® powered keyboard/mouse, and I am happy with it. Another attractive part of using the old Microsoft solution was that it worked in Linux, assuming that this new version would, and having cool return policies at electronic stores, I went for it.
I'd have to say that best part is the scroll wheel located on the left side of the keyboard. Especially when reading/viewing a long document, doesn't that mouse wheel get old after awhile?
Initially, when using these peripherals with Ubuntu Dapper Drake, the mouse and keyboard wheels didn't work. A Google search revealed, that there's a bug in the HID layer which the bluez subsystem uses for Bluetooth® powered Human Interface Devices (hence HID). A patch for the Linux kernel provided on the bluez site (thanks to Christian, for the test kernel with applied bluez kernel patch in a deb package) surprisingly yielded a functioning keyboard and mouse wheel!!!
I then started asking (many times, due to no replies) people in the #ubuntu IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, if anyone has applied the patch. Luckily someone then mentioned that there was a #ubuntu-kernel channel, I asked in there and finally got an answer! Long story short, the kernel patch made it into the latest kernel in Ubuntu Dapper Drake! I did install the lastest bluez-utils and bluez-libs from the bluez.org website, I'm sure there will be updated bluez packages in the Ubuntu Dapper Drake repositories soon.
