CQ56 Presario Special keyboard Keys not working

[obsidian_razor]

Hi everyone,

I've recently installed Ubuntu in my Compaq Presario CQ56 and it had been working like a charm. I switched to Kubuntu as I liked the look and feel of KDE more, and for the most part, the switch has been absolutely painless.

However, the special keys in my keyboard no longer work in Kubuntu, while they did in Ubuntu. By special keys I mean the key to summon the calculator, summon the print-setup screen, summon internet browser, etc.

I have chosen the brand of my laptop on the keyboard setup. I use US-International (Alt Gr Keys) as my keyboard layout, as I'm spanish and I like having access to the special characters in my language such as "ñ".

Does anybody know how to fix this?

Thank you in advance.

[Teunis]

I assume these are not hardware keys but part of the desktop you had in Ubuntu?

It is fairly easy to set up key combinations from the K menu (launcher).
Right klick the K-menu and select Edit Programs.
Select the program you want to assign a key to and then the Advanced tab, at the bottom is the option to assign a Key (combination)

As an example, I use Meta+N for Firefox (Netscape!) and Meta+T for Thunderbird.
Meta is the key with the Window icon.

[obsidian_razor]

I actually mean hardware keys. My laptop has keys to summon the calculator, open the print menu, go to the home page in the browser, etc...

Some of these work and others don't, and assigning them shortcuts doesn't seem to work either. Strangely enough, if I open with Unity they work like a charm...

[Teunis]

Ah OK, I googled for the model and did not see any hardware keys.
These keys are most likely a function of the desktop in use so comparing Unity with KDE won't work.

This page gives a good explanation for what is called 'Mapping keys' in Kubuntu.
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KDEMultimediaKeys

Google can give you more hits on this subject.

[obsidian_razor]

After testing several things the only key that remains non-functional is the calculator key.

Xev recognizes it being pressed, but assigning it to it's function does nothing

Thanks.