function keys change after suspend

[Guest]

Hi all,

I am hoping someone here can help me with a small problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite E300 notebook which has a series of function keys across the top of the keyboard (as most notebooks do now). I have a dual boot with Windows 7 and in Windows the function keys operate as the marked function and you have to use the function key to change them to the standard F keys.

The problem I have with Kubuntu is that some of the keys work when I start the computer up (volume, eject, wireless on/off, sleep) but the brightness keys don't. However they work the opposite to Windows requiring the function key to operate.

This isn't too much of an issue as there are a number of ways of getting the keys to work (they register in xev) but the strange part is that after the computer is suspended and then woken up the keys change. The keys which didn't work before now do without the use of the function key and those that did no longer do, they don't even show up in xev.

I don't care which way it goes because I can fiddle around and make them work but I just need it to remain consistent. I am currently using Quantal but it was exactly the same in Precise, I upgraded (clean install) to see if it would fix the problem. It also occurs with Unity desktop, and in Mint but seems to be alright with OpenSuse (tested with live flash drives).

I have been using Ubuntu on and off for about 6 years but have just changed to Kubuntu to escape from Unity (I tried to like it but I just find KDE so much better now).

Thanks for your help.

[Snowhog]

Welcome to KFN.

The 'special' function keys can be problematic in Linux. They were/are for me on my two laptops. You can try adding kernel boot options to see which one(s) might give you the desired results. On my HP Pavilion g7, I had to use noapic.

Edit (as root) the /etc/default/grub file and add the desired option to try to the following line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=

The option(s) have to be in quotes (" "), so if you try noapic, the line would look like:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="noapic"

Save and close the file and then shutdown/reboot and test.

See: BootOptions - Community Documentation - Common Kernel Options

[Guest]

Thanks for that Snowhog. I tried noapic and nolapic with no change and none of the other options appear to be relevant to the problem.

Any other suggestions? I just want it to behave consistently. Why would it change after suspend? it appears as though the keyboard is re-detected differently on waking from suspend.

[SecretCode]

I must admit I have not heard of this, let alone experienced it on the couple of laptops I've used Kubuntu on.

It might be worth having a look at the scripts in /etc/pm (and all its subdirectories) and seeing if they give any clues.

[oshunluvr]

Another possible solution might be to define the key functions in .xmodmap instead. It should remain consistant.

It does sound like an apic problem though. I'd be interested to see if anything was being logged re. the keyboard.