Why the Amazon Basics Keyboard Is My Favorite Keyboard

The problem with the MS Natural is that the shape of the keyboard, as compared to standard, goes away from your fingers the farther you are away from your middle finger. Kinesis Advantage does it the opposite, meaning that your fingers have to travel less to reach all the keys.

Sharp edges in what way?

I've never been stabbed by it and the corners are all rounded. The long edge running across the bottom under the spacebar is the only thing that could maybe be described as sharp but it's nothing like the edge of a piece of wood or anything sharp. I wouldn't have even noticed it after years of usage without you mentioning it. I've also never once hit it with my hands.

I also used the device on Debian without issues. It just worked out of the box. No idea about a Raspberry Pi but Google mentions others are using it without problems.

Maybe you had an older model of this keyboard?

Exactly.

And now 6+ hours and hundreds of comments later I went through the comments and I still haven't seen anyone post a single mechanical keyboard that matches my requirements at any price point. It's just dozens of posts about needing to be a keyboard surgeon and assembling a selection of carefully picked pieces without any end to end guides.

For the most part I just want to plug it in, have it feel good and write code.

Your $150 recommendation from below almost fits the bill but it looks like a super condensed keyboard with a non-standard layout that's missing a bunch of extra keys, and I can't find any concrete proof of what it sounds like on video. It also has a lower average star review than the Amazon Basics keyboard (but I wouldn't put much weight into that).

I am not willing to spend the money to give it an extended try because it probably would prove worse for me that the Amazon Basics because the PC board or boards the keys are mounted on are curved.

With any curved board, I worry that I will have to pay too much attention to achieve the condition (3) in my previous comment (without my constantly looking at the board, which of course is important to avoid). That was my big problem with the Kinesis Advantage.

For convenience I will now repeat condition (3) from my previous comment: at the moment of contact, the finger tip is moving roughly in the same direction that the key will travel. Keys mounted on a curved PC board will all travel in different directions. My worry is that for me to maintain my condition (3) during my use of such a board will require me to pay an excessive amount of attention to keeping memorized to a sufficient degree of precision the direction of travel of every key. (If I'm not constantly looking at my keyboard, then the only way for me to maintain my condition (3) is to have the travel direction of every key memorized.) When all the keys travel in the same direction, as is the case with any standard keyboard, I only need to keep memorized that single direction.

Also there is a condition (4) not mentioned in my previous post: namely, to strike the key cap roughly at the key's center line, which is made easier when as is the case in a standard keyboard, but is not the case with any of Microsoft's post-2005 ergonomic keyboards, each center line of a key with a letter or number on it is exactly .75 inches from the center line of its neighbors left and right provided the neighbor also has a letter or number on it.

Microsoft's pre-2005 ergonomic keyboards were OK, i.e., not curved. (The direction of travel of the keys on the left half of the board was significantly different from the direction of travel of the keys on the right half, which meant I needed to keep memorized 2 different directions of travel, which was easy enough -- and of course vastly easier than memorizing the 80 or so different directions of travel of any post-2005 Microsoft ergonomic keyboard I am aware of.) I bought 1 or 2 when they were still being produced. My big problem with them was their lack of sufficient "key stability": that is, like most cheap keyboards of the time, the key cap would rotate a lot when struck off the center line or when the direction the tip of the finger is moving on contact with the key cap is not parallel to the key's direction of travel. Among the really cheap keyboards I have used, the Amazon Basics has by far the most key stability. (Its short key travel helps it there. Also, I suspect, but was unable to use a search engine to confirm, it uses a scissor mechanism, which also helps.)

One of the great things about a mechanical keyboard is the repairability. When I spilled a drink on my keyboard and a few keys got sticky, I just ordered a few switches online and replaced them with some basic soldering. You probably won't be able to find any replacement parts for most keyboards. Also, while it's not best keyboard, it's fairly easy to find replacement key caps for Apple keyboards as well.