new post: how to upgrade the TEK firmware in a virtual machine

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+---
+title: Upgrading the TEK's firmware --- on GNU/Linux
+date: 2014/11/23
+tags: keyboard, virtualbox
+---
+
+I'm using the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard (model 209) for most of my
+typing, because it's a pretty comfortable keyboard (when it works).
+One of the greatest features of this keyboard is that the layout can
+be customised and flashed to the hardware with a firmware upgrade.
+Unfortunately, the application used to flash the firmware is only
+available for Microsoft Windows.
+
+As a GNU/Linux user I find this to be very inconvenient.  I simply
+don't have access to a machine running Microsoft Windows (not even at
+the office).  Luckily, Microsoft provides
+[free virtual machine images](http://modern.ie) of various versions of
+their operating system for browser evaluation purposes.  I
+occasionally use them to verify that a web page works all right in the
+proprietary and often quirky Microsoft browsers.  Although these
+images could be used in KVM, converting and tweaking them takes a
+little too long and is a bit annoying.  For the quickest results these
+images should be imported with Virtual Box instead.
+
+Truly Ergonomic recommends not to use virtualisation software to
+update the firmware of the keyboard, but as I was out of other options
+I decided to give it a try anyway.  You probably should not be doing
+this if you don't feel you would be able to perform a
+[manual reset](https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/troubleshooting--truly-ergonomic-mechanical-keyboard#Reset)
+of the controller in case something goes wrong.
+
+## Preparation
+
+- a recent version of Virtual Box
+- a virtual machine image of Microsoft Windows
+- a user account that is a member of the group *vboxusers*; required
+  to access any host USB devices from within a Virtual Box machine.
+  If you have just added your account to this group, remember that you
+  need to log off and on again before the changes come into effect.
+- enable USB 2.0 support, provided by the *Oracle VM VirtualBox
+  Extension Pack*.  The extension pack has to be installed through the
+  preferences menu in the VirtualBox client.  Note that you may have
+  to run the client as root to have sufficient permissions to install
+  the extension pack.
+- a USB device filter configured to pass host USB devices through to
+  the virtual machine
+
+If everything is set up properly you should be able to forward USB
+devices from the host system to the virtual machine.  Try setting up a
+USB device filter in the USB settings menu of the virtual machine.
+You should be able to create a filter for the Truly Ergonomic Keyboard
+right there.  If you cannot see a list of USB devices at all at this
+point check that your user account is a member of the group
+*vboxusers*.
+
+
+## Performing the upgrade
+
+Inside the Windows machine start the official firmware upgrade tool,
+load the firmware you want to flash to the keyboard, and click on
+*Upgrade*.  This will result in an error message, but that's okay:
+don't panic!  The reason why this error occurs is that the USB
+identifier of the keyboard will have changed from something like this:
+
+    ID 0e6a:030c Megawin Technology Co., Ltd Truly Ergonomic Computer Keyboard
+
+to something like this:
+
+    ID 0e6a:030b Megawin Technology Co., Ltd Truly Ergonomic Computer Keyboard (Device Firmware Update mode)
+
+Since the USB identifier has changed, VirtualBox may no longer forward
+this device from the host to the virtual machine guest system.  All
+you have to do is add a filter for this new USB device in the guest
+settings and resume the upgrade by clicking on *Upgrade* again.  This
+will again lead to another error, but I found that by that time the
+upgrade has already been performed successfully.
+
+Note that while the USB device is being forwarded to the guest system
+you cannot use it in the host.  To test if the new firmware works as
+expected in your system, disable the USB filters in the guest
+settings.