I've installed Fedora Core 1 on my Compaq Presario 2188CL, but the "fn" key doesn't operate. I'm not sure if there is something I need to turn on or if I need to change my keyboard settings.

Appreciate any ideas, and happy to give more information if needed.

Still, trying to figure this linux thing out.

Sorry to not offer any advice, but I am considering a compaq 2188cl
at Sam's club (xp 2500+), but I require it to work with Linux.

Did you find a fix for the "fn" key problem and/or found any other
problems or have an updated general opinion of using this laptop
with Linux?

Thanks for your advice.

I also purchased mine from sam's club. To be honest I haven't tried much to get the fn key to work or even played with it a whole lot since I've installed. Linux is something I'm just playing with for now. I've not really had too many other problems. I've been unable to hot switch between the mouse and touchpad, but I think those two are it. And I haven't tried any other distos.

Hey everyone...here's the problem with the function keys...

The compaqs treat them as "multimedia keys" (at least at the program level). Remember ever hearing that dell, compaq, hp and the others have a SMALL 10mb "virtual drive" that helps the computer remember that it is a computer of the said brand?

Well, that's where all the information is related to the keyboards. They call on that virtual drive, but I don't have my compaq anymore (2.0 celeron). I got a 3.06ghz p4! woot! :P

Anyhoo, if anyone has one and uses something like norton or mcafee they should be able to "see" the drive or maybe even fdisk...then from there grab the said files maybe through wine or something? I am not sure what exactly to do , but I DO know that a program is run that actually calls the FN keys "media" keys (I suppose since the keyboard doesn't have multimedia keys).

Also, I may be going on a tangent, but this is what had happend in my case.