Keyboard Special Buttons HowTo

If you getting errors at startup about key bindings and your using Default Keymap, you could try firing up System Center and System Tweaks and switch your keymap US.

In Control Center --> Reginal & Accessiblity --> Keyboard layout, click Enable Keyboard Layouts then select your keyboard model on the left. If your keyboard isn't listed or doesn't seem to be working properly then select Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. It works well with most keyboard special buttons.

Now you can setup your special buttons in KHotKeys (also in Contorl Center).

To control XMMS using multimedia keys you can just create KHotKeys command lines.

<br />
XMMS Back = xmms --rew<br />
XMMS Forward = xmms --fwd<br />
XMMS Play/Pause = xmms --play-pause<br />
XMMS Stop = xmms --stop<br />

If your you set your keyboard layout properly then your Volume & Mute buttons should work (you will see OSD of these working). This is controlled by KDE's KMilo daemon. It's a good program but the options aren't there yet to change the Volume stepping. When I press my volume buttons the volume changes about 10% which is just to big a jump. I wan't more control so you can disable Kmilo in Control Center --> KDE Components --> Service Manager. Then under Startup Service you can uncheck Kmilo there. Restart Xwindows

To setup new volume contorls you can open Kmix (that speaker in your taskbar, bottom right). Right click on master, Configure Shortcuts and set it up almost like KHotKeys above.

Hopefully Kmilo will make it easy to configure the Volume stepping soon. I liked the OSD of my volume and mute actions. The KMilo Thinkpad plugin supports this so I'm sure it will be enabled soon for generic keyboard setups.