You've got to get up to get down

March 2, 2007 3:13 PM

What happened to my down-arrow key, and why is only affected in linux (it works fine in XP, and it's never been wet)

I dual boot my [Dell Inspiron 700m] laptop between Ubuntu and WinXP, and there is a peculiar problem with my keyboard: when using Linux the down key does not respond while in "normal" mode... Ctrl+down or Shift+down produce the appropriate effects, and everything works fine in XP. I have a hunch that this might have started when I plugged in a normal 104-key USB keyboard, during which time I did use Numlock + the keypad, but that is hardly an extraordinary event. I have played with the keyboard layout sessions, selecting all Dell- or generic layouts... to no avail. Why did this change happen? Can I restore it, or is there a(n easy/gui) way to re-map the key? Thanks

posted by zachxman to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

I don't know what's causing the problem, but you can get some useful diagnostics by running the "xev" command from a terminal, and looking at the keycode and/or keysyms it outputs when you click on the xev window and then press the broken key.
posted by mbrubeck at 3:30 PM on March 2, 2007

Also try the showkey command if you have it installed, it only works as root under X but should work as any user from the console.
posted by fvw at 4:07 PM on March 2, 2007