Linux - Laptop and NetbookHaving a problem installing or configuring Linux on your laptop? Need help running Linux on your netbook? This forum is for you. This forum is for any topics relating to Linux and either traditional laptops or netbooks (such as the Asus EEE PC, Everex CloudBook or MSI Wind).
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I have a laptop and some "Fn" keys weren't recognized by the kernel (linux 2.6.13). Therefore, I "setkeycodes" as suggested by dmesg, and mapped them with xmodmap. That way xev recognizes them properly. However, xev seems pretty confused by them.
The keys I "setkeycoded" are reported released and then pressed (respectively) as if when I release the key it is "pressed" to the kernel and vice versa...
I thought it had something to do with ACPI, as the "suspend" key triggers an ACPI event. But there seems to be no event bound for that keys.
Has anyone else experienced this VERY weird behavior?
I have a Dell Latitude D610 and I've noticed the same thing. I still don't know how to get most of my Fn-keys to work in X. Just wondering though, how did you map them with xmodmap so "xev" can see them? I would be interested to try that out.
Assuming you have suspend working on your laptop, you can get the suspend key to work by creating a file in the acpi events directory, '/etc/acpi/events/sleep.conf', with the contents
event=button/sleep
action=/usr/sbin/hibernate
Note that the "action" line may be different on your machine, depending on what command triggers suspension (I have Software Suspend 2 on my machine).
Anyway, let me know about xmodmap, I'm very curious about it...thanks...
Ah, figured out xmodmap, and now I see what you mean. I tried to map the "eject" function key (Fn-F10) by assigning it to "F19" via xmodmap. Then when I tried xev, it registered the event, but showed "keysym 0x0, NoSymbol". So it doesn't seem to want to assign symbols to these keys, even though it will recognize them when pressed.
If anybody has any ideas about this, I'm all ears!
I've had some success getting Fn-keys to work in Fedora (I have a Dell Latitude D610). However, I should mention that using xmodmap and xev is apparently very unstable, and often one has to restart X (or even reboot) to get things working right after messing with these tools.
I have configured the "hibernate" key (Fn-F1) to trigger Suspend-to-Disk, and the "eject" key to eject a CD, but you could easily configure other Fn-keys using the same method. So, here we go... In my rc.local script, I put the following:
setkeycodes e00a 123
setkeycodes e009 122
In the file ~/.Xmodmap, I placed these commands:
keycode 210 = F14
keycode 209 = F15
Then, using gconf-editor (in Gnome) I mapped these keys to the desired tasks. (Of course, you have to restart X for this to take effect.) Now, the strange part is, I couldn't get any other keycodes to work EXCEPT 123 and 122, which map (respectively) to 210 and 209 respectively. I don't know why none of the other codes seem to work. But I hope they will work for you. Let me know if you have any questions.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.