[Techtalk] Fn keys on vaio (was Re: VGA out, avi weirdnes)

[Conni]

On Aug 18, Akkana conjectured:

> Conni writes:
> > The Fn/F7
> > combination doesn't really *do* anything, nor does Fn/F4 increase the
> > volume, nor Fn/F3 mute.  And the jogdial still doesn't work.  When I put
> 
> On my SR17 (don't know if this is true of your '77), the function keys
> are handled in software, not hardware -- so they have to be handled by
> the sonypi driver.  But on my machine (I talk about this on my page)
> enabling the function keys disables the machine's ability to suspend,
> so I don't enable function keys because they aren't that important to

Since I can't suspend my laptop *anyway* (no, really... it just hangs.  My
bios has no apm support; only acpi), disabling suspend isn't really an
issue for me.

> me.  (As of 2.4.17; maybe this is fixed in the current sonypi driver,
> but I haven't tried to find out.)  Anyway, the sonypi documentation
> (sonypi.txt in the kernel's Documentation directory) talks about how
> to enable them using fnkeyinit, and why it's not on by default.

I'll go search for that sometime and try to set it up.

> You need to specify some sort of window manager in .Xclients.
> X starts up, executes that file, and only hangs around until the file is
> finished executing; that's why quitting from the window manager makes
> X close down.  So you need to add a line after sonypid & with "startkde"
> or "gnome-session" or "icewm" or whatever window manager you use.

Oh.  Right.  'startx' works great, when I don't have .Xclients, and it
starts gnome fine.  So I wondered why it died when .Xclients existed...

> Also, you can test by just starting up X normally and then running
> sonypid -d from a shell window, and watch the output to see if it's
> seeing events when you scroll the wheel.  Then if you want to fiddle
> with anything, you can just hit ^C to kill the program, stay in X,
> make whatever changes you need to make and then run sonypid -d again.
> That's a lot faster than starting and stopping X all the time.

Oooh, great idea.  I'll try that. ^_^

> > This is normally where I just throw my hands up and give up, and wait for
> > a newer kernel or what have you.  Unfortunately, I *really* need to get
> > the VGA out and divx working by 9/10, because I've said I'd let the anime
> > club show digisubs from my laptop.  (Or I could just give up and say I
> 
> I'll be interested to hear how that goes.  I have managed to drive
> an external monitor with my SR17: I made a backup copy of XF86Config-4
> then edited the existing one to use 800x600 instead of 1024x768, and
> it drove a monitor fine.  I think this means it will also drive a
> projector, but I haven't had a chance to try it and see.

We won't have a projector per se; the campus computer system thingy is set
up so that you plug the dongle-thing in, and it feeds through this
multiport (2 laptop plugs, a computer, dvd player, ld player, vhs, and
overhead) which feeds the projectors in the back of the room.  Sounds
complicated, but it works reasonably well.

And since I got Open Office installed, I won't have to use powerpoint for
presentations, as long as the room we're presenting in has an input
device.

> Probably a better way is to add 800x600 and 640x480 as optional
> resolutions in XF86Config-4, then use the magic "switch resolutions"
> key in X (I know there is one, but I always forget what it is)
> just before hooking up to the projector.  I'll probably try that
> first if I ever have to give a talk using computer slides.

I'll try that, too.  I think I have those set as alternate resolutions,
but I'm not sure.  (And Orome is at home today, so I can't boot up and
check.)

Conni
slowly getting the hang of things.

-- 
It is the blood that makes us human...
			-Leiji Matsumoto, _Adieu Galaxy Express 999_

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