Keyboard

Special function keys

Tested with a stock 2.6.25 kernel from Debian unstable:

• Fn+F4 (increase brightness) and Fn+F5 (decrease brightness) work fine.
• Fn+F1, Fn+F2, Fn+F3, Fn+F6, Fn+F7, Fn+F8 don't seem work.
• Fn+Num (NumLock) works fine
• Fn+Pos1, Fn+Ende, Fn+PageUp, Fn+PageDown work fine.
• ...

This is a little better in the pre-shipped Ubuntu.

• Fn+F4 (increase brightness) and Fn+F5 (decrease brightness) work fine.
• Fn+F1, Fn+F2, Fn+F6, Fn+F7, Fn+F8 work when in Gnome
• Fn+F3 will work with the via X11 driver once it is ready (it says so in the beta-release notes)
• Fn+Num (NumLock) works fine
• Fn+Pos1, Fn+Ende, Fn+PageUp, Fn+PageDown work fine.
• ...

external KBD

while some individual USB-keyboards will not work properly e.g. on a hub, others will (such as the Microsoft keyboard within windows). Also don't forget to attach your external 1600x1200 LCD to have a nice silent workstation with a VIA_Padlock-ENGINE.

How to get the volume regulation working

The key combinations Fn+F6 (Mute), Fn+F7 (Lower Volume), Fn+F8 (Raise Volume) create unique key codes which can be made to work manually. Create a ~/.xsessionrc file with the following content:

• #!/bin/sh
• xmodmap -e 'keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute'
• xmodmap -e 'keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume'
• xmodmap -e 'keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume'

and mark it as executable (chmod +x ~/.xsessionrc).

This will map these combinations onto the standard Xorg volume key mappings. Depending on your distribution and its default settings it may already work after relogin. Otherwise you need to configure your desktop environment accordingly.

You can use aumix to control the volume, like this:

• aumix set Master toggle (mute/unmute)
• aumix set Master 3%+ (or 3%- to lower volume)