FreeBSD on notebook, does not work Fn key correctly

[smooky]

Hi guys!
Have installed FreeBSD on notebook:

7.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE #0: Sun Mar 21 06:15:01 UTC 2010     [email]root@walker.cse.buffalo.edu[/email]:/usr/obj/usr/src
/sys/GENERIC  i386

On the keyboard have the additional digital keys activated by the special "Fn" key with blue color text. So there is it does not work correctly, it seems to me it's pressed always.

How could I fix that? What I need reed or set up?

Thanks.

 

[fronclynne]

What those keys do is dependent upon the bios. On my IBM laptop, some of them actually trigger bios events (like dimming the backlight, or altering the hardware volume), but my Toshiba does exactly nothing. You could always fire up x11/xev and see what it says they do (if anything) and then map them to something.

 

[ondra_knezour]

Short citation from
acpi_ibm()

DESCRIPTION
The acpi_ibm driver provides support for hotkeys and other components of
IBM laptops. The main purpose of this driver is to provide an interface,
accessible via sysctl(8) and devd(8), through which applications can
determine the status of various laptop components.

While the sysctl(8) interface is enabled automatically after loading the
driver, the devd(8) interface has to be enabled explicitly, as it may
alter the default action of certain keys. This is done by setting the
events sysctl as described below. Specifying which keys should generate
events is done by setting a bitmask, whereas each bit represents one key
or key combination. This bitmask, accessible via the eventmask sysctl,
is set to availmask by default, a value representing all possible key-
press events on the specific ThinkPad model.

devd(8) Events
Hotkey events received by devd(8) provide the following information:

system "ACPI"
subsystem "IBM"
type The source of the event in the ACPI namespace. The
value depends on the model.
notify Event code (see below).

Depending on the ThinkPad model, event codes may vary. On a ThinkPad
T41p these are as follows:

0x01 Fn + F1
0x02 Fn + F2
0x03 Fn + F3 (LCD backlight)
0x04 Fn + F4 (Suspend to RAM)
0x05 Fn + F5 (Bluetooth)
...

There may be needed additional kernel module to use some/all of your notebooks functions.