FN Key Tutorial (Part 2)..

**** WARNING: This will only work for releases up to Feisty. For Gutsy release and later check here! (only for FS model laptops). If you don’t have an FS model laptop, you can try this tutorial anyway but download the 2.0.1 version of the fsfn software from here and use that in place of the usual sony fn key software. I’ve not tried this myself though, so please leave a comment if it works for you ****

You can find Part 1 of the tutorial here & Part 3 here!

Part 2 – Guides you through the downloading, installing & testing of the Sony Fn Key software.

WARNING: Although the FSFN software has been known to work on different models of Sony VAIO laptops, this tutorial is only for the FS series.

Installation:

Open up a new terminal.

Type the following BOLD parts of the lines into your terminal in order, pressing the enter button after each one..

wget http://gp2x.projectinfinity.org.uk/fsfn/fsfn-1.1-take2.tar.gz – Downloads the FSFN software archive to your desktop.

tar zxvf fsfn-1.1-take2.tar.gz – This command extracts the contents of the archive to your desktop.

cd fsfn-1.1 – Navigates you into the folder you just extracted from the archive.

./configure && make && sudo make install – Configures & installs the software to your system.

cd .. – Navigates you back into your home folder.

Testing:

Now it’s installed, it’s time to test it & make sure that the keys all register as they should.
Once again in the terminal type..

sudo fsfn – This will start the FSFN daemon.

sudo fsfn -o – Starts up the on screen display software.

Now you can try your Fn key + all of the combination keys (F4 etc.) to make sure they work.
Just press Ctrl+c to exit back to the command line when finished

WARNING: Don’t try Fn+F12 for hibernate just yet. There are known problems with hibernate & suspend + the software’s currently not set up for it.

Finalising:

You might have noticed that it doesn’t work quite as well as it should just yet & seems to jump about a little too much
This is because it’s still missing the software’s main configuration file & it seems to need the complete installation before it settles down & works as well as it should. Trust me when I tell you that this software works pretty much spot on when finished

sudo killall fsfn – unloads the FSFN daemon again before you change any settings.

wget http://gp2x.projectinfinity.org.uk/fsfn/fsfn.conf.txt – Downloads the basic configuration file to your desktop.

sudo mv fsfn.conf.txt /etc/fsfn.conf - Moves the configuration file to the correct directory & renames it.

sudo chown root /etc/fsfn.conf – Makes the file only editable by the root user (or a user with sudo) for security.

Feel free to either delete or move the downloaded files from your home folder now. You won’t be needing them any more

sudo rm -r fsfn-1.1-take2.tar.gz – Deletes the downloaded archive.

sudo rm -r fsfn-1.1 – Deletes the extracted fsfn-1.1 folder.

That’s pretty much it for now