Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 219968
Fn key on Macbook Pro stopped working
Last modified: 2013-03-05 22:48:49 EST
In kernel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 and earlier my Fn key worked. In kernel-2.6.19-1.2877.fc7 not so. This is on an Apple Macbook Pro. This makes it impossible to use Home, End, Pg+, Pg- ''keys'' (they are accessed through Fn + arrow keys) effectively rendering the keyboard, and thus the laptop, useless for manipulating source code. I'm stuck at kernel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 until this is fixed. Thanks.
This is a regression the usbhid driver. Also note that # cat /sys/module/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode 1 with is expected given that # modinfo usbhid |grep pb_fnmode parm: pb_fnmode:Mode of fn key on PowerBooks (0 = disabled, 1 = fkeyslast, 2 = fkeysfirst) (int) but it just don't work. Thanks for looking into this.
David, attach your /proc/bus/usb/devices please. I want to see if this is 0x0215 or 0x0218 keyboard.
Created attachment 143876 [details] /proc/bus/usb/devices It's attached. Thanks!
Looks like it's a 0x217 keyboard... It's a keyboard with US layout fwiw.
David, I need one more piece of information (which I should be able to obtain by reading source in CVS, but for extra surety I'm asking you to get it from the real install). Please do this on the affected system: ls /boot/config* grep CONFIG_USB_HID_POWERBOOK /boot/config-2.6.*
Hi, sorry for the lag [davidz@zelda ~]$ ls /boot/config* /boot/config-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 /boot/config-2.6.19-1.2877.fc7 [davidz@zelda ~]$ grep CONFIG_USB_HID_POWERBOOK /boot/config-2.6.* /boot/config-2.6.19-1.2877.fc7:CONFIG_USB_HID_POWERBOOK=y Thanks.
I see, thanks. Did you try to boot with "pb_fnmode=0"?
The new Core 2 Duo MacBook and MacBook pro have different id's. For example MacBook has Vendor=05ac ProdID=021a mactel-linux has patches containing the new product ID's http://mactel-linux.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mactel-linux/trunk/kernel/mactel-patches-2.6.18/usbhid.patch?view=log
Hi Pete. Nope, pb_fnmode=0 didn't work either, sorry.
I am sorry, but I just found out that hid has become modular (surprise!), so if you put that in the grub.conf, it won't have an effect. Can you retry with "options hid pb_fnmode=0" in /etc/modprobe.conf, and verify that it is set by "cat /sys/module/hid/pb_fnmode"?
oh, I actually did put "options usbhid pb_fnmode=1" (assuming you made a typo in comment 10 and meant usbhid not hid) in /etc/modprobe.conf and did verify it by looking at /sys/module/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode and the value was indeed set to 0. Note that with with 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 (which I'm running now) /sys/module/usbhid/parameters/pb_fnmode is 1 (so it's not a module otherwise /etc/modprobe.conf would set it to 0) and it works like as intended.
Created attachment 144333 [details] Patch from Soeren My gawd, just look at this: http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/23/18
Oh my :-) - any chance we can get this patch in Rawhide if it isn't already? Thanks!
I'm all for it but it's up to DaveJ. Strangely, the config* files in the CVS HEAD already set up (may need deleting CONFIG_USB_HID_POWERBOOK after the patch is applied, for cleanliness): [zaitcev@lembas devel]$ grep POWERBOOK configs/config* configs/config-generic:CONFIG_USB_HID_POWERBOOK=y configs/config-generic:# CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT_POWERBOOK is not set configs/config-powerpc-generic:CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT_POWERBOOK=y configs/config-x86-generic:CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT_POWERBOOK=y
This indeed seems to be fixed in 2904.fc7. Thanks! Closing.
Are there any plans to backport these changes into FC6 ?
The Fn key is not working again as of F8 test 3 on my Macbook Pro. It was working with F7. It causes the same issues as before: PgDown, PgUp, Home, etc are not accessible.
I've recompiled the kernel (2.6.23-6) by changing # CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT_POWERBOOK is not set in "config-generic" to CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT_POWERBOOK=y The Fn key is now working. Could you make sure that it is included in the next update, so that I don't have to recompile the kernel again? Thanks, Robert