I gave it a quick go and very few things work at the moment. None of the programs you listed do.
From the README:
At the moment it can render simple applications that do GLX, EGL or Vulkan graphics (fully hardware accelerated) nested in an existing X server.
And that sounds about right. As far as I can tell it doesn't yet have a lot of the core X11 stuff that "normal" clients expect. For example xterm doesn't start because requests like X_AllocColor, X_OpenFont, X_PutImage (a few picked at random from the error output) are not implemented yet.
It's the opposite for me for one reason: hashtag follows!
There are very few people I want to follow for everything they have to say. I am interested in subjects, topics. Mastodon's hashtag follow feature gives me this. It's not perfect, you need to be on a relatively large instance to take full advantage of it (since it only picks up toots that make it to the instance) but it's still much, much better than no hashtag follow at all.
Datahand user, for me switching back and forth between the DH and a regular keyboard (a Thinkpad for the most part) is not a problem at all. It doesn't even feel particularly annoying, I think it's because it almost feels like a different input device category. Kind of like playing the same game on the Steamdeck with controller input and then later on the desktop with keyboard and mouse. I might prefer one but I am fine with the other too.
BTW, I've played about 15K matches of my favorite MOBA on the Datahand, works surprisingly well for that, I imagine the Svalboard would too.
I am a longtime (25+ years) Datahand user. I have converted my units to a USB capable controller long ago and I have some extra ones as spares/parts but it might be difficult to get another 25 years out of them.
Haven't tried the Svalboard yet but it's the only obvious way forward that I know of so happy to see any new information about it. I'd be especially interested in the opinion of other Datahand users regarding the Svalboard, specifically the hardware, the switches and overall feel.
From the README:
And that sounds about right. As far as I can tell it doesn't yet have a lot of the core X11 stuff that "normal" clients expect. For example xterm doesn't start because requests like X_AllocColor, X_OpenFont, X_PutImage (a few picked at random from the error output) are not implemented yet.
glxgears on the other hand does work :)