Toshiba and other notebooks: Fn+ keys dead or... Caret browsing????

Timmi · 05-16-2010, 08:36 AM

Ever since... 9.10 I believe, and into 10.04, the FN+ key combinations on Toshiba no longer work.

For example, FN-F6 FN+F7 respectively decrease or increase screen brightness on Toshiba laptops. Very handy when you use your laptop in the day... and evenings! But there are many others, including speed, monitors, etc.

But since a few versions now, this is no longer possible, even with the correct utilities installed from the repositories.

When Firefox is running, this gets you the "Caret browsing" dialog box, something more appropriate for older distros and geeks.

Can anyone tell me how can this be fixed?

David the H. · 05-16-2010, 04:34 PM

Caret browsing is a Firefox feature, bound to F7. Some of the other function keys are bound as well, such as F6 for jumping to the location bar, and F11 for full-screen browsing.

So from what you describe, it looks like something is causing the function key to go unrecognized.

Other than that, I doubt I can help you much.

Timmi · 05-16-2010, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David the H.

Caret browsing is a Firefox feature, bound to F7. Some of the other function keys are bound as well, such as F6 for jumping to the location bar, and F11 for full-screen browsing.

So from what you describe, it looks like something is causing the function key to go unrecognized.

Other than that, I doubt I can help you much.

OK, thanks. But anything based on the latest versions of Ubuntu doesnt work. I was in Mint-ubuntu prior, and it worked fine, but somewhere in mid-Mint8's lifespan, some things were changed and disabled (such as Skype, one I know for a fact, but a few other things too). Other Ubuntu issues did the same, so I'm thinking this is an upstream thing?