'Special' Keyboard Keys on Linux

ninjabob7 · 02-13-2006, 10:54 AM

I just got a wireless keyboard. On the top it has special buttons. (Sleep, back, forward, volume control, play/pause, etc.) Is there a way to use these buttons in Linux? The keyboard is from Micro Innovations. It's a set of mouse and keyboard. I think it's called Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse. I currently use Vector Linux (based on Slackware), but I'm going to get a new computer soon and will probably put Slackware on that.

dive · 02-13-2006, 11:22 AM

Depends on your WM/DE.

For fluxbox I have in .Xmodmap:

Code:

keycode 111 = F13
keycode 236 = F14
keycode 178 = F15
pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 8 9 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

The keycodes are the bits that you need, which you can discover by running xev. Then I setup in .fluxbox/keys:

Code:

None F13 :ExecCommand import shot.jpg
None F14 :ExecCommand thunderbird
None F15 :ExecCommand firefox

ninjabob7 · 02-14-2006, 07:27 PM

Okay, I got the keycodes from xev. How do I map them in KDE and IceWM? Also, what's the difference between a WM and a DE? (I know what they stand for.)
The keys are:

Sleep
Home
Back
Forward
Open Browser
Email
Play/Pause
Skip Backwards
Skip Forwards
Stop
Volume Up
Mute
Volume Down

My browser is firefox and I use webmail, so I guess I could just type "firefox mail.yahoo.com". I'm not sure which media player is on Vector. I think it's XMMS, but not sure. The media buttons aren't that important to me.

heema · 02-15-2006, 02:51 AM

these two links will help you out

http://linuxgangster.org/modules.php...warticle&id=17

http://www.cweiske.de/howto/xmodmap/allinone.html

ninjabob7 · 02-20-2006, 03:13 PM

It's still not doing anything. I created the .Xmodmap according to the instructions, but it doesn't do anything. I'm currently using KANOTIX 2005-03 (a live cd) because my computer is too broken to run anything else. I got the browse and mail buttons to work my mapping them as keyboard shortcuts in KDE's menu editor. The back key (haven't tested the forward and home keys yet) works in Konqueror but not in Firefox. And for some reason KHotKeys doesn't work. It looks like the daemon isn't running. When I run khotkeys from a terminal, it says it couldn't communicate with the daemon and that it might have crashed. Shouldn't that launch the daemon?