[ltp] [x200 && debian/sid] lost media control keys

[Micha Feigin]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:05:56 +0100
Richard Neill <rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dot Deb wrote:
> > These last days I lost the control of my media players (audacious,
> > rhythmbox) via the nice keys that can be activated through "Fn".
> > 
> > What I'd like to do is to understand how those keys work and how to
> > debug my problem.
> > 
>

Debian upgraded to X 7.4 which uses hal to configure stuff rather than
xorg.conf so if you had settings in xorg.cong they were lost. May affected that.
 
> The Fn-x  keys are special - they aren't regular keypresses (as seen by 
> X), but triggers for ACPI (bios) events. They should be monitored by acpid.
> 
> To monitor them, try tail -f /var/log/acpid.
> 
> Each key is configured in /etc/acpi/events
> 

Debian configures these keys to generate false key presses so they should
appear as standard keyboard keys. This doesn't work properly for me though if
the keyboard is not set to the right type and doesn't support these key presses
(I can't seem to get the thinkvantage button to function for some reason for
example.

> The result of a keypress is the corresponding script in /etc/acpi/
>     (or sometimes /etc/acpi/actions/ ).
> 
> That script can do what you like. It can run commands, such as
>    rhythmbox-clien --play
> or it can fake an Xorg keypress  (of a keysym that usually isn't present 
> on the keyboard), by means of acpi_fakekey.
> 
> Hopefully that will get you started.
> 
> 
> Alternatively, you may prefer to just assign the keyboard shortcuts to 
> some alternative keypress - the regular Gnome/KDE keybindings (or 
> xbindkeys) work with any of the other keys on the keyboard, except the 
> Fn-combinations.
> 
> Hope that helps,
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
>