Feedback: Support for fn key on Apple PowerBooks

Feedback: Support for fn key on Apple PowerBooks

[Frank Arnold]

Hi,

finally this patch seems to have made it into recent Fedora Rawhide
kernel. Thanks for your work.

I have some trouble with it. Actually, the mapping of function keys F1
to F10 seems to be inverse. I have to press fn + function key to get a
plain function key event. Pressing a function key only gives me those
fancy new keycodes for brightness, mute, and so on. Page up, Page down,
Home, and End are working like expected.

My system: PowerBook5,6 (vendor id 0x020F)
Kernel: 2.6.15-1.1858_FC5, as per Changelog 2.6.15-git12

-- Frank

Re: Feedback: Support for fn key on Apple PowerBooks

[Michael Hanselmann]

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On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:27:43AM +0100, Frank Arnold wrote:
> I have some trouble with it. Actually, the mapping of function keys F1
> to F10 seems to be inverse. I have to press fn + function key to get a
> plain function key event. Pressing a function key only gives me those
> fancy new keycodes for brightness, mute, and so on. Page up, Page down,
> Home, and End are working like expected.

Mac OS X behaviour (default):
echo 1 > /sys/modules/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode

F keys first:
echo 2 > /sys/modules/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode

Disable special keys completly, but report Fn to userland:
echo 0 > /sys/modules/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode

You could have been able to find that out easily by looking at the
source code.

Greets,
Michael

-- 
Gentoo Linux developer, http://hansmi.ch/, http://forkbomb.ch/
"Besides, I think [Slackware] sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?"
(By Patrick Volkerding)

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Re: Feedback: Support for fn key on Apple PowerBooks

[Frank Arnold]

Am Mittwoch, den 18.01.2006, 12:20 +0100 schrieb Michael Hanselmann:
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:27:43AM +0100, Frank Arnold wrote:
> > I have some trouble with it. Actually, the mapping of function keys F1
> > to F10 seems to be inverse. I have to press fn + function key to get a
> > plain function key event. Pressing a function key only gives me those
> > fancy new keycodes for brightness, mute, and so on. Page up, Page down,
> > Home, and End are working like expected.
> 
> Mac OS X behaviour (default):
> echo 1 > /sys/modules/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode

Thank you, now I've got it.

I never really used Mac OS X and didn't know about this behavior.
Personally I would prefer fkeysfirst as default setting. It's much more
sane on Linux because function keys are frequently used in different
applications. I nearly break my fingers when trying to get to the GNOME
main menu with fkeyslast.

Anyway, perhaps I'm biased. I can live with both, now that I know where
to set it.

Frank

Re: Feedback: Support for fn key on Apple PowerBooks

[Michael Hanselmann]

On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 03:30:33PM +0100, Frank Arnold wrote:
> Anyway, perhaps I'm biased. I can live with both, now that I know where
> to set it.

You can also pass the usbhid.pb_fnmode parameter when loading the
kernel. For example, append="video=radeonfb usbhid.pb_fnmode=2" with
yaboot.

Greets,
Michael

-- 
Gentoo Linux developer, http://hansmi.ch/, http://forkbomb.ch/