Thanks Chuck.

I had seen the Lenovo fixes, but that didn't seem to fit this situation.

At least now, in these explanations, I can see why it's often suggested to remap the CapsLock as an extra CTRL key.

Others suggest physically rewiring the thing; switching the wires. That isn't possible in this one. This is a $30 plastic keyboard that should have cost 9 bucks max. I'll rewire the nice but sick one, whenever the soldering iron is dropped off here.

Thanks again everyone.
Liz


On 4 July 2012 02:49, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
See here for the gory details.  As you can see, there is pretty much
no easy way to turn Fn into a generic key, especially not a Ctrl key.
There may be a hard way that involves loading a custom ACPI DSDT and
creating custom actions for every combination of Fn and every other
key--if there are even enough non-overlapping codes to do it.  Also
bare in mind that these are IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad specific docs:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_get_special_keys_to_work

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_hotswap_Ultrabay_devices

On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 10:29:27PM -0400, E Johnson wrote:
> How did you create the custom action??
> (need the commnds)
> Thanks
> Liz
>
> On 3 July 2012 22:22, Chuck Anderson <cra@wpi.edu> wrote:
>
> > More specifically, it is handled by the ACPI BIOS in SMM (system
> > management mode).  You might be able to hook it via acpid, but
> > probably not in a suitably complete way to emulate Ctrl for all uses.
> > I was able to create a custom action Fn+F9 on my laptop to power down
> > the optical/hard drive bay so I could eject it.
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 06:52:21PM -0400, E Johnson wrote:
> > > Oh. Well, that explains why I can't get the keymap code, thank you.
> > >
> > > I guess that explains why it's a fix in the BIOS too, if the BIOS will do
> > > it.
> > >
> > > But I need the keymap code. Need to do CTRL-C and CTRL-V a zillion
> > > times/day, but the distance between CTRL and C and V in this keyboard is
> > > too short. If CTRL was an inch to the left, life would be normal &
> > > arthriitic effects would be reduced.
> > >
> > > Thank you very much, Mike.
> > >
> > > Liz
> > >
> > > On 3 July 2012 18:32, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Tuesday 03 July 2012 17:10:12 E Johnson wrote:
> > > > > I can run xev to get the keymap codes, for all keys but this FN key.
> > > > > Apparently the FN key won't give any output by itself, at least not
> > using
> > > > > this method.
> > > >
> > > > many (most?) keyboards process FN in hardware.  the OS doesn't get a
> > > > chance to
> > > > see it.  so if you do FN+down arrow to get page down, it's the keyboard
> > > > itself
> > > > that is sending the "page down" key.  the OS doesn't see "FN+down
> > arrow"
> > > > and
> > > > translate it to "page down" in software.
> > > > -mike
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