Learn to touch-type with KDE Typewriting Trainer
KDE's Typewriting Trainer, formally known as Ktouch, is a great way to learn to touch-type or improve your touch-typing skills on GNU/Linux machines. It's available on all distributions.
Why you should learn how to Touch-Type[edit]
The touch method is a technique that allows you to type fast on the standard keyboards. The dry theory is very simple: the fingers on your left hand should rest at the keys asdf, the fingers on your right hand should rest at jkl;. All other keys should be pressed by moving those fingers up, down, left and right.
Learning how to touch-type will let you type much, much faster. It does not matter if you are able to type relatively fast using your "own method"! If what you are used to is not touch then you are doing it wrong - you are typing using a method which has a low upper limit for how fast you will be able to type compared to touch. Be patient and start over from scratch. Touch will eventually allow you to type much faster IF you accept that you will type slower during the initial learning period.
There are several programs made specially for teaching you how to type fast on Linux. One stands out as the best: The KDE Typewriting Trainer from the KDE Educational package. You probably have it if you are using the Plasma Desktop Environment. Install it by searching for ktouch (the package still uses the older name) if you don't. ktouch is also the name of it's executable.
Useful for both beginners and advanced users[edit]
KDE Typewriting Trainer has numerous exercises for a wide variety of languages and keyboard layouts with a wide range of difficulties. The first exercise will just get you used to typing f and j.
From there the various exercise levels which involve more and more keys. Each one involves more keys, going level by level lets you gradually learn to use more and more fingers until you're a skilled typist.
You can skip directly to the more advanced exercises if you already know how to touch-type and just want to improve your skills.
Learning to touch-type as a fast rate is simply a matter of practicing. Remember, while the KDE Typewriting Trainer is useful for learning where your hands should be and practicing the real difference comes from forcing yourself to touch-typing at all times regardless of what you are doing on your computer - even if it's initially slower than what you're currently doing.
Good luck.
