I am running Mandriva 2008.0 on a Compaq Presario R4025 Laptop. When I try to use my Volume buttons, the volume either goes all the way up or all the way down and then they stop responding. Upon investigation, I found using showkeys that there was a key press but no key release event for these buttons. Linux must think that I'm holding these buttons down.

Is there a way to get these volume buttons working properly? Is there some way to stop it from looking for a key release or to trick it into seeing a key release?

Please help me out, I'm a complete newb. I like Linux and want to leave no excuses to go back to Windows so help me to eliminate this one.

I am using xbindkeys for that, a good place to start would be with the xbindkeys manpage.
You also might have to map the keys to specific xwindow events.

Here is the output of xbindkeys -s on my desktop using a saitek eclipse keyboard.

"amixer sset PCM toggle"
m:0x0 + c:160
XF86AudioMute
"amixer sset PCM 2+"
m:0x0 + c:176
XF86AudioRaiseVolume
"amixer sset PCM 2-"
m:0x0 + c:174
XF86AudioLowerVolume

This is my xbindkeysrc file

"amixer sset PCM toggle"
m:0x0 + c:160

"amixer sset PCM 2+"
m:0x0 + c:176

"amixer sset PCM 2-"
m:0x0 + c:174


I think that at some point I must have edited one of the keysym files to attach the xwindow event to the keys.
I can't remember exactly how i did mine, but start with xbindkeys.

Not sure but perhaps xmodmap can solve it?