Hi there,
I recently acquired a Sony Vaio VGN FW31ZJ and installed Ubuntu 8.10. Not surprisingly, the Fn key didn't work. The screen is set by default to full brightness, which makes working on Ubuntu more than 30 minutes per day an hazardous task.
After a few google searches I found this tutorial:
http://vaioubuntu.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/finally-a-brightness-how-to-for-vaio-fw-series/#comment-6...
It consists in patching and recompiling the DSDT.dsl file and adding a sony-laptop module to the kernel. As is, this tutorial doesn't work for the FW3x series, but with hand editing the DSDT.dsl file it is possible to mimic the tutorial to the end, although the compilation of this file returns a few errors.
After rebooting, the Fn key with F5 and F6 bring up a small menu with a bar that moves right or left, but the effect on the screen brightness is nill.
After reading other websites I tried to run acpi_listen to make sure Ubuntu is getting the Fn inputs. Here’s what I got after pressing Fn+F5 and Fn+F6:
lads@MDK:~$ acpi_listen
sony/hotkey SNC 00000001 00000010
sony/hotkey SNC 00000001 0000003b
sony/hotkey SNC 00000001 00000011
sony/hotkey SNC 00000001 0000003b
It seems to me that Ubuntu is getting the correct signals from the keyboard but is either ignoring them or failing to transmit them to the graphics card.
Can anyone help? Many Thanks.
