Booted Ubuntu into my g74sx a few questions.

[Yisera]

Hello peeps!
I wanted to know if it is possible to get the fn+f1-f12 keys to work on ubuntu ( I have Quantal Quetzal upgrade(12.10))
so that I can light up my keyboard and go volume up/down, or just use brightness options.

Is there a way to disable the trackpad when I connect a mouse, just like on windows? Is there a trackpad driver to allow gestures?

Thanks in advance! 🙂

[fostert]

Yisera wrote:
Hello peeps!
I wanted to know if it is possible to get the fn+f1-f12 keys to work on ubuntu ( I have Quantal Quetzal upgrade(12.10))
so that I can light up my keyboard and go volume up/down, or just use brightness options.

I use Debian on my G74, and a generic debian distro kernel 3.2, which has the ASUS ACPI features compiled in (see http://acpi4asus.sourceforge.net/). I can control the KB backlight, volume, screen brightness, WIFI enable/disable, etc at the GDM screen before logging into X and running a window manager, but once I am running a WM the Fn- keys don't seem to work anymore, so the WM has probably remapped them for its own uses.

[Zygomorphic]

fostert wrote:
I use Debian on my G74, and a generic debian distro kernel 3.2, which has the ASUS ACPI features compiled in (see http://acpi4asus.sourceforge.net/). I can control the KB backlight, volume, screen brightness, WIFI enable/disable, etc at the GDM screen before logging into X and running a window manager, but once I am running a WM the Fn- keys don't seem to work anymore, so the WM has probably remapped them for its own uses.

Thanks, @fostert, I will look into getting them running on my OpenSUSE installation so that I can change the keyboard brightness. On my system, the following work by default:
fn+f2 : wireless
fn+f5 : screen brightness up (not with nVidia driver though)
fn+f6 : screen brightness down (not with nVidia driver though)
fn+f7 : boss key 😛 - screen off
fn+f10 : mute
fn+f11 : volume down
fn+f12 : volume up

[andoh666]

fostert wrote:
I use Debian on my G74, and a generic debian distro kernel 3.2, which has the ASUS ACPI features compiled in (see http://acpi4asus.sourceforge.net/). I can control the KB backlight, volume, screen brightness, WIFI enable/disable, etc at the GDM screen before logging into X and running a window manager, but once I am running a WM the Fn- keys don't seem to work anymore, so the WM has probably remapped them for its own uses.

Dunno, I seem to have no problems with the fn keys either before or after login. Have you got the appropriate third-party drivers installed?

[Zygomorphic]

andoh666 wrote:
Dunno, I seem to have no problems with the fn keys either before or after login. Have you got the appropriate third-party drivers installed?

Ubuntu configures the necessary drivers a little bit differently, so you likely won't have problems with it. That is one of the things that I like about Ubuntu is the focus on auto-configuration and ease of use which helps the transition from Windows to LINUX.

[Gorman]

Bodhi here (Ubuntu 10.04 ofshoot), I remapped fn+... using the key mapping utility.
If you google around you should find a generic way to remap keys, then you can just remap them as you please.

For example on my netbook I remapped fn+up to amixer -q sset Master 3%+

[Spook50]

Gorman wrote:
Bodhi here (Ubuntu 10.04 ofshoot), I remapped fn+... using the key mapping utility.
If you google around you should find a generic way to remap keys, then you can just remap them as you please.

For example on my netbook I remapped fn+up to amixer -q sset Master 3%+

A little late to the party here, but how/where were you able to get the particular command strings for the function key, well, functions? I'm planning on dual booting Ubuntu myself so I can yutz around with it, and would like to retain their functionality there too.

[Gorman]

Spook50 wrote:
A little late to the party here, but how/where were you able to get the particular command strings for the function key, well, functions? I'm planning on dual booting Ubuntu myself so I can yutz around with it, and would like to retain their functionality there too.

Well Bodhi has a keyremapping utility which I use.

If you google "How to remap keys " then it should come up. Or go to command line and type "key" then try tab complete it and you might get lucky 😉

[Zygomorphic]

Gorman wrote:
Well Bodhi has a keyremapping utility which I use.

If you google "How to remap keys " then it should come up. Or go to command line and type "key" then try tab complete it and you might get lucky 😉

Ha! Best advice ever! Google...forums...:D

[Spook50]

Gorman wrote:
Well Bodhi has a keyremapping utility which I use.

If you google "How to remap keys " then it should come up. Or go to command line and type "key" then try tab complete it and you might get lucky 😉

Hrmm, maybe I just wasn't looking closely enough. I got plenty of hits on Google for the actual process to remap keys, but nothing that I saw that showed what exact strings (ie, "amixer -q sset Master 3%+" for the Volume Up function) to actually remap the Function keys too. Obviously I haven't installed Ubuntu yet either, so I haven't been able to nose around in there.