#1 2023-03-01 20:19:48

bslsoc

New Member

Registered: 2023-02-17

Posts: 1

Function Keys on Chromebook not working

Hi,

I have an ACER R11 Chromebook (Cyan, Braswell) that previously had GalliumOS and it worked well. However, the distro is no longer supported.

I discovered BSL and installed it. It seems to be nice and fast enough (I run it off a USB 3.0 Samsung FIT drive). Wifi works, sound works. I have experience with various distros and desktop environment (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Mate, etc), but new to the default openBox.

One of the major issue is that all the keys at the top row, except for the Escape key, do not work. So, I can't change the screen brightness or the speaker volume with those keys. If I use xrandr, I can change the screen brightness, so it looks like it is just not interpreting the keys.

I used xev and do see those keys mapped to F1-F10. The power button does not work to suspend either. I tried looking online, but various posts refer to xfce which is not the current environment.

What do I need to do to activate/associate actions the Function keys?

thanks a lot.

Keep up the good work on BSL.

longborderd

New Member

Registered: 2023-08-16

Posts: 1

Re: Function Keys on Chromebook not working

I'm also trying to get this functionality on an Acer CB3-431 Chromebook.

I've tried pulling in the /usr/share/X11/xkb data from GalliumOS (building and installing form source, using and installing a .deb, etc.) but that doesn't seem to affect the ability to change the Chromebook layout option when I run dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration or appropriately apply those keybindings in the system.

Gallium OS provided different keyboard layouts for the Chromebook keyboard settings (changing Function key behavior and Super key bindings based on user preference).

Where does Bunsenlabs and/or dpkg build the list of available configurations from? The current Chromebook option in dpkg reconfigure only shows language options, not alternate Super and F key bindings.

Happy to take a stab at attempting to convert the GalliumOS xkb data into .xbindkeysrc codes if that seems like the correct place to do it. Or knowing how to specify the alternate Chromebook layout in /etc/default/keyboard to force the correct layout/behavior?

Can't quite figure out how the various systems integrate/what takes precedent over what.

Biggest hurdle is reassigning the F1-11 keys to function primarily as multimedia keys and using a SUPER + (or some other MOD key) to map the as F1-F11.

hhh

Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,140

Website

Re: Function Keys on Chromebook not working

Off the top of my head, maybe the Debian kernel is too old?

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I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

PackRat

jgmenu user Numero Uno

Registered: 2015-10-02

Posts: 2,660

Re: Function Keys on Chromebook not working

Is there another key you need to press in order for the function key to work? On my laptop (Dell) there is a dedicated Fn key so Fn-F3 changes brightness.

I did a search and it looks like Acer uses the Search key for this (magnifying glass symbol). So Search+F3 will invoke the function.

Look through the user manual and see if it's in there. Also, some computers will let you go into the BIOS and select to use the top row as the functions or traditional F1-F12.

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You must unlearn what you have learned.
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