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I recently upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10. After the upgrade, I can no longer adjust the screen brightness or the volume using keyboard (before the upgrade, using Fn+F4, Fn+F11, etc. worked).

Using Fn+F2 to disable wireless still works, so I guess the Fn key itself is being recognised.

I tried to follow the instructions here, but I don't have a file in /etc/X11 called xorg.conf.

I also tried following this workaround, but it had no noticeable effect.

I've also tried going to Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts and reassigning the brightness and volume controls, both to the default keys and to new combinations. These changes don't have an effect even after rebooting.

Googling has found bug reports where pressing the media keys brings up a "no entry sign" rather than changing the volume. When I press the keys there's no response at all.

I've also seen various people say a workaround is to have totem running in the background; this doesn't work for me either.

Finally, I tried installing keytouch; I was able to install keytouch-editor but got the message "Unable to locate package keytouch".

Any more ideas? I'd be very grateful if anyone could help me (even by pointing to a thread I've missed)!

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Adina G
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  • Wow, this is an old question... still need an answer? If you don't have an xorg.conf file, you can actually just make one to follow those instructions. – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 15 '12 at 09:58
  • Still looking for an answer -- thanks for your response. I tried creating an xorg.conf file and following the instructions, but it didn't help. – Adina G Apr 15 '12 at 14:41
  • Are you using the default graphics driver or a proprietary one like nvidia? – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 00:34
  • The default one, I think (how would I check?). – Adina G Apr 16 '12 at 02:54
  • in the terminal, type lspci -v

    Last few lines will look like:

    Kernel driver in use: nvidia Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb

     – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 02:59
  • nouveau is the default driver. – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 03:00
  • Hmm, I'm seeing xhci_hcd. Though nothing actually mentions a graphics driver. – Adina G Apr 16 '12 at 03:29
  • Sorry, I thought they would be in a certain order, but I guess there's no reason they should be. Look for the section that has nouveau listed as a kernel module. The section heading should probably have 'VGA compatible controller' in it (and the manufacturer name). Then look to see what kernel driver is in use. – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 03:35
  • The section headed "VGA compatible controller" lists i915 as the kernel driver in use. – Adina G Apr 16 '12 at 03:41
  • Ok. That helps (but unfortunately only to indicate there could be a lot of bugs, e.g. in the linux kernel, that is causing this). Can you actually adjust the brightness at all, e.g. by using a slider on the display setting? – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 04:04
  • If you aren't able to adjust brightness at all through the GUI, see this way of adjusting from the command line. If that doesn't work, then the problem may require a kernel patch or upgrade. – Chan-Ho Suh Apr 16 '12 at 04:39

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I discovered that running gnome-settings-daemon fixes this issue (and gives me a functional battery status indicator again), so I added it to my startup commands.

Adina G
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