Help > Laptop Hardware
[Solved - sort of] FN+Function keys problem
russell.eberhardt:
I've been trying to get my Toshiba Satellite 870 set up properly and I'm stumped trying to get the monitor brightness control working.
It has a "FN" shift key for the function keys so that it should, for example, reduce the brightness if I press FN+F2. Some key combinations work for example FN+F9 reduces the volume.
I have checked with xev in a terminal and, while pressing F9 gives keycode 75 without the FN key, it gives keycode 122 with the FN key.
FN+F2 should give keycode 232 according to xmodmap -pk but it gives no key event. Out of the 12 function keys only 6 work with the FN key. The others behave correctly.
I have tried a number of alternative keyboard layout from PCC but they all give the same result.
It is not a hardware problem problem as these keys all work in another distro and in Windows.
There is another thread here where this problem was solved by changing to the pae kernel. However that didn't work for me and moreover it stopped the wifi working!
So what am I missing? Is there a file somewhere that gives the key codes that each key or combination should produce?
Im running PCLinuxOS KDE 2012.8 fully updated and using kernel 3.2.18-pclos2.bfs.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Russell.
jimwilk:
Russell,
Don't know if this is quite the same problem, but check this link out:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=308757
I searched for KDE brightness control Toshiba
Jim
russell.eberhardt:
Thanks for that, an interesting discussion. It looks as if there are problems with both X11 and KDE. xev doesn't return a key code for the FN+F2 and some other combinations so I guess there is a problem with X11-driver-input-keyboard.
Some people have reported that an upgrade to the NVIDIA driver to version 304.64 fixes the problem but for others it doesn't.
There is also a KDE problem as adjusting the display brightness slider in the Energy Savings - System Setting screen doesn,t work correctly. It won't dim the screen until it gets down to 20% and then it is impossible to bring the brightness back up!
Looks as if I'll just have to be patient and wait for some upgrades.
Russell.
The Chief:
What do you have the keyboard identified as? There are quite a few selections available in PCC. Once I selected the proper one, all my function keys worked as intended.
Admittedly, on a Compaq... but a Toshiba shouldn't be that different.
russell.eberhardt:
--- Quote from: The Chief on December 03, 2012, 07:08:48 AM ---What do you have the keyboard identified as? There are quite a few selections available in PCC. Once I selected the proper one, all my function keys worked as intended.
Admittedly, on a Compaq... but a Toshiba shouldn't be that different.
--- End quote ---
Currently French layout, generic 105-key. I've also tried Toshiba Satellite S3000 and a few others. None of them seem to affect the operation of the FN+F# key combinations. It seems to me that the Xwindows system isn't generating key codes for these key combinations (so KDE can't do anything with them) otherwise xev would pick them up wouldn't it?
I think I'm getting a bit out of my depth here.
I have tried two other distros, both of which use desktops based on GNOME so perhaps I'm wrong and it is KDE! My brain's hurting ???
Russell.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version