Laptop suggestions?

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 01:06:20PM -0700, Nate Eldredge wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Gary Kline wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 01:06:29PM +0200, Dag-Erling Sm?rgrav wrote:
>>> martinko <gamato at users.sf.net> writes:
>>>> I have always thought that Fn key in left most bottom corner of the
>>>> keyboard is, especially for programmers, a very bad idea.  :-(
>>>
>>> Seconded.  Worse still, on my Lenovo T60, if the Fn key is held down
>>> longer than a fraction of a second, it generates an input event which
>>> just happens to correspond to Gnome's default key binding for the "next
>>> track" function in media players...
>>
>> 	I've seen that Fn key, but don't know what it is for.  What? you press
>> 	it, then follow with the integers [ 1, 2, 3 ... ]?   At any rate, maybe
>> 	you can remap the key with ~/.xmodmaprc.
>
> Fn is usually used on laptop keyboards to allow two logical keys to share 
> a single physical key.  For example, see the keyboard pictured at
> http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/3415.jpg .  On the extreme lower  
> right is a key with "->" in white and "End" in blue.  Pressing it by  
> itself sends the keycode corresponding to an ordinary keyboard's "->" 
> key. Holding Fn and pressing that key sends the keycode corresponding to 
> an ordinary keyboard's "End" key.  On many keyboards, pressing Fn by 
> itself sends no keycode at all, so it cannot be remapped.
>
> It is also sometimes used to control hardware features which on a desktop 
> machine might have a different interface.  For instance, on the laptop  
> pictured, holding Fn and pressing F6 would increase the screen 
> brightness, probably without sending a keycode.  A desktop machine would 
> probably have a button on the monitor itself to do this.

I always figured "Fn" was a good name for the key, given that it
resembles the expletive that comes forth from my mouth when intending to
hit Control.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/9328.jpg

;-)

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |