Dell Laptop Some FN Keys not working with MX21

[razor2021]

And if you are on pure linux, just create a bootable USB stick with FreeDos and then copy the BIOS setup.exe onto the USB stick and run it from DOS on USB stick.

[Fornhamfred]

Thanks for your replies.

What if you press Fn+Esc keys once, then try ? Tried but no change.

Will have a go at updating the Bios tomorrow and report back. Why would 19.4 with updated 4.19 kernel work and not 21 with the same kernel?

[razor2021]

That's also a valid point regarding MX19.4 + kernel 4.19 working but MX21 not. It might be a kernel issue where the 5.10.x kernel for MX21 might have broken something. There are newer kernels ... I'm using 5.15.x with MX21. So, upgrading to a newer kernel is also a possibility. I upgraded from 5.10.x to 5.14.x to 5.15.x.

[Fornhamfred]

That's also a valid point regarding MX19.4 + kernel 4.19 working but MX21 not. It might be a kernel issue where the 5.10.x kernel for MX21 might have broken something. There are newer kernels ... I'm using 5.15.x with MX21. So, upgrading to a newer kernel is also a possibility. I upgraded from 5.10.x to 5.14.x to 5.15.x.

Thanks. Updated BIOS but no change. Downloaded the Oct Iso and burnt USB but no change, however downloaded the Jan15 snapshot and burnt USB and that works perfectly. Will reinstall this version to make sure that the permanent system works OK.

[Huckleberry Finn]

...Updated BIOS but no change. Downloaded the Oct Iso and burnt USB but no change, however downloaded the Jan15 snapshot and burnt USB and that works perfectly...

Then it must be a firmware (or so) that was changed (upgraded) since then.

[Fornhamfred]

...Updated BIOS but no change. Downloaded the Oct Iso and burnt USB but no change, however downloaded the Jan15 snapshot and burnt USB and that works perfectly...

Then it must be a firmware (or so) that was changed (upgraded) since then.

Installed the Jan snapshot and the sound fn keys do not work again. Could there be something in the home partition that is causing the problem?
I checked pavucontrol but settings are identical between the live USB and the install.

[Huckleberry Finn]

That weirdness happened a few times about wifi : works on live session and doesn't when installed :D

What happens if you create a new user and login with that?

And can you try booting with systemd ? (You know, "advanced options" in grub) (though live session was not systemd)

[razor2021]

You re-installed Jan snapshot and it did not work, but it worked the first time. When it worked - why did you reinstall?
Update-upgrade with it working and see if it gets broken later.

[Fornhamfred]

That weirdness happened a few times about wifi : works on live session and doesn't when installed :D

What happens if you create a new user and login with that?

And can you try booting with systemd ? (You know, "advanced options" in grub) (though live session was not systemd)

Added new user and logged in and all is fine. Is there any option but to delete my home account and then reinstate it?

[Huckleberry Finn]

Oh la la :D

A real puzzle. Anyway, glad it works now and thank you for the feedback.

If you like, this will be a perfect experiment (and nothing to lose): You can copy your actual user's settings to the new one with MX User Manager - "Copy/Sync" tab (and also see if it breaks that, too ) :)