Re: Fn keys don't work on i3wm but work on Xfce

[Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>]

Grigory Fateyev (HE12025-08-09):
> I recently installed Debian Trixie on my new Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen3
> (Intel Core i7-155H, Meteor Lake-P). While everything works smoothly
> under Xfce, my Fn keys (brightness, volume, etc.) stopped functioning
> after switching to i3wm.
> 
> Could you advise on how to export the relevant Xfce configuration for
> these keys and apply it in i3wm?

That is probably not possible.

>				   Any troubleshooting steps or
> alternative solutions would also be greatly appreciated.

This is the diagnosis method:

Open a terminal and run “xev”, select the window that opens. Look at the
terminal, a lot of lines appear. Press one of the keys you want, and
look at what appears in the terminal at that exact time.

If it is a “KeyPress event” and then a “KeyRelease event”, as I suspect,
it means that nobody is listening to these keys, they are just keys that
are transmitted to the application like F1 or menu.

If that is the case, you need to configure something to listen to these
keys and act accordingly. I do not know if i3 has built-in support for
user-defined keyboard shortcuts; otherwise you will need to use an
additional tool.

I also do not know what stand-alone tools are available on your system
to perform the actions associated with these keys. You will need to be
able to adjust the brightness or volume by command line before you can
bind it to a key.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George