microsoft natural keyboard 4000 F10/Spell

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Monday 03 August 2009 07:28:33 Frank Cox wrote:
> I have a Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard on this computer.
[snip]
> Unfortunately, F10/Spell doesn't have a keycode according to xev.  In fact,
> xev doesn't register any event at all when I press F10 with F-lock off. (Of
> course, I get keycode 76 when F-lock is on.)
>
> So it appears that F10/Spell isn't recognized by the keyboard driver (or
> something).  All the rest of the F-keys are recognized and have a keycode
> when F-lock is off, with the single exception of F10/Spell.
>
> Am I just outta-luck here?

First of all, is it a PS/2 or USB keyboard? They are handled differently at the 
kernel level.

Does F10/Spell generate a scancode sequence when pressed? If it does, you just 
need to assign a new unused keycode to this scancodes (using setkeycodes) and 
go from there.

man showkey
man setkeycodes

If it doesn't generate a scancode, then you're out of luck, i guess. Maybe 
some way to force the keyboard to always fix the F-lock state to on?

Btw, i agree that this F-lock "feature" is always a big pain, I always refuse 
to buy keyboards that have it, and I would certainly never recommend such a 
keyboard to others. The least the designers could have done is to put a led 
indicator showing the current state of lock-ness, without having me to guess 
what will happen when I press the Fn key. But they don't even bother with 
that. The worst design idea I saw in some time now...

HTH, :-)
Marko