broken prtscn button kills my ubuntu

mrpurple · 06-22-2010, 03:37 PM

Hi I'm keen to install Ubuntu on my old laptop
(HP ze4500 2.4GHz 1Gb Ram 120GbHDD) But during installation (I presume as soon as the screen capture function becomes available) A zillion screen capture screens appear and lock up the system.

It may be due to my prtscn button being missing. Actually its just the plastic part and the rubber button mechanism is still present. The button works without the plastic part completely fine in windows. That is to say I can press it when I want to use it and it works and it does nothing noticable otherwise.

Seems like a pretty trivial way to kill ubuntu, perhaps there's a trivial way to solve this problem on my laptop without replacing it?

I do get through to the desktop sometimes if i carefully dont touch the keyboard and shutdown the screencapture panels as they appear. It doesnt seem to matter which method i use to get into the desktop though livecd/install alongside windows/fresh install.

brucehinrichs · 06-22-2010, 04:33 PM

A quick google search for "how to disable a keyboard key ubuntu" gives several promising results. The first one looks good.

mrpurple · 06-23-2010, 01:51 AM

Thanks, yeh google is cool when you know what your looking for

So it would seem that xev and xmodmap are the key so to speak... However

I cant do anything by the time the desktop is visable so I needed to get to the terminal during boot. more googling and I see that ctrl-alt-f1 opens me up a terminal before my system starts and subsiquently gets thrown by my faulty key

unfortunately within the terminal that o open during boot xev and xmodmap result in "unable to open display '' "

more googling and it seems that both of these commands, which the vast majority of help on remapping keyboards are based on, seem to need the KDE to be up and running which is no good if your faulty key is killing the KDE. Maybe I should use xkb? unfortunanely instructions on its use look like instructions to build the space shuttle in greek to me.

I didnt think It'd be that difficult. Perhaps I'm missing something simple to get those commands or something equivilent which will work at the terminal in order to remap the keyboard before going to the desktop.

Anyone know of such a thing or what I've got wrong?

brucehinrichs · 06-23-2010, 10:41 AM

You will then probably have to find the correct file to modify. For gnome it looks to be /home/<username>/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/host-<computer-hostname>/0/%gconf.xml. Sorry, I don't have KDE on this install, but I would imagine it is similar.

Here's mine:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gconf>
        <entry name="numlock_on" mtime="1277205094" type="bool" value="false"/>
</gconf>

Perhaps add a line similar to:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gconf>
        <entry name="numlock_on" mtime="1277205094" type="bool" value="false"/>
        <entry name="prt_scrn" mtime="" type="bool" value="false"/>
</gconf>

Maybe someone with KDE can help more, I'm just guessing at this point, but maybe this will get you further. Sorry I can't help more.

mrpurple · 06-26-2010, 10:35 PM

I havent had any luck locating the part of the X conf files to modify but I did finally get a long enough go on Gnome, before it hung out, to get into the terminal and run

Code:

xmodmap -pke
xmodmap -e 'keycode 107 = NoSymbol'

which solved my problem after a reboot. (xmodmap -pke indicated the 107 code for printscreen in my case).
So while it wasnt really the solution I was after I did get it sorted in the end.

Thanks guys

brucehinrichs · 06-27-2010, 02:35 PM

Glad you got it sorted! If you're happy with the solution, please mark the thread as [SOLVED] using the thread tools at the top of the first post.

mrpurple · 06-28-2010, 03:37 AM

Actually we're on the right track but I wouldnt call it solved.

In another forum I see that I should put the command in the System, Preferences, Sessions, Startup Programs folder, Add. In order to make it perminant.

That does work but if I could find a way to add the command from the terminal (preferably one not requiring the kde as xmodmap does) Then someone with a keyboard which kills their laptop would have a better shot at saving it.

I will have look myself. Quick googling gives many options . As soon as I have a working method I will post for others. Possibly based on /etc/rc.local

mrpurple · 06-28-2010, 04:36 AM

editing rc.local didnt work
and as it turns out when I finally got to the start up add part and added the xmodmap -e line and deleted the prtscn key perminantly (checked this with restarts)

Even with no prtscn key (checked with xmodmap -pke) My laptop is still being shut down by repeated screen captures.

After 10+ hours I'm officailly giving up on ubuntu for this laptop...

and leaving this post unsolved.