My Pavilion - recently acquired second hand from a reputable computer shop - works well, but I find the function keys frustrating.

The top row on the keyboard has f1 to f12 printed on the upprecase position on the keys and the lowercase positions have '?', 'screen dimmer symbol', 'screen brighter symbol' and so forth.

If I press the key with f1, I get Gnome Help - in other words, it works as I would like it to. In fact, I don't know how to access the '?' on that key!

On the other hand, if I press f2 the screen gets dimmer. This is pretty useless as I cannot get to activate the rest of the function keys.

Annoyingly, this behaviour is not consistent: if I press alt+ctrl+f3 I get a console, which is what I want.

Is there any way to 'tell' the keyboard to use the function keys as function keys normally and the special uses to be accessed with the shift key?

Then you have to change the keyboard layout with xorg.conf.

to use the F keys, you need to hold down the Fn button in the lower left of the keyboard. I have that same keyboard. its reversed from how most people think about the Fn keys. the "media" keys are the default instead of the Function keys. The F1 key seems to work becuase its actually the "Help" key, not a question mark.

If you want to change this so the fuction keys are the default, you can change a setting in the HP's bios settings.

Doh! (Slaps forehead).Double Doh! Thanks very much. I should have thought of both those approaches. Sigh. Growing old. "8-)

A warning for the unwary: the bios text is opposite to reality: it says the Disabled state puts the F-keys into the state where they need the Fn key, but actually Disabled sets the function keys to expected 'normal' behaviour. Thanks to dolphin oracle my lappie is now working as I want. "8-)