Run “xev” to see if X sees anything at all: Gives output for other keys, but not these two.
“showkeys” on the console: Same thing
“showkeys -s” on the console: Same thing
Run “xxd /dev/input/event0”: Gives output for other keys, but not these two.
After rebooting trying the keys in GRUB’s command line editor: Nothing happens.
Plugging in an external USB keyboard: That keyboard works fine.
Curiously with showkeys:
holding down right shift says “keycode 54 press” once, then about a second later repeats that a whole bunch of times
However pressing right shift and then holding down INT 2 (well, the “~#” key in UK layout) right after makes the “keycode 54 press” repeating not happen.
Similarly with “xxd /dev/input/event0” pressing INT 1 or INT 2 while holding shift stops the otherwise flow of data scrolling by…
What I take from this is that the hardware is noticing the key press, but is not generating scan codes (or whatever it’s called) to the OS. But I could be wrong.
I really hope this is a firmware problem that can be fixed. Is it maybe running a US keyboard firmware on a UK keyboard?
I tried following these instructions to upgrade coreboot, but seem to have gotten the same version string, and it didn’t fix the problem.
While waiting for an answer from Purism I remapped the menu key to \|: sudo setkeycodes e05d 43
Received my Librem 13 v2 with UK keyboard today and has the same issue. Enjoying everything else about this machine, but this issue is a bit of a blocker for me - pipe and tilde are kind of essential.
Could you confirm how much of what I tried (e.g. showkeys, shift-the keys, etc…) you tried and saw the same effect?
I also got the tip to try unplugging the battery for a minute, in case there’s some chip that needed a reset. I unplugged the wide connector in the middle of the battery for 2min and plugged it back in. No change, unfortunately.
I got librem 13 v2 with uk keyboard.
Same issue.
I did more or less same as you, same results - no scancodes/events.
I then compiled a fresh kernel (linus vanilla 4.15) with CONFIG_INPUT_EVBUG so all input events get logged to system log directly from the kernel (without even going through the AT keyboard driver).
Again - no events for those two keys. (and possibly missing a couple of others weird keypresses such as fn+f1 - which i really don’t care about)
I think this is nothing to do with linux distro or software configuration. I think your assumption about firmware is most likely.
Thanks - but No point really. From the kernel input event logging I can see kernel isn’t seeing the events from hardware, therefore Xorg and anything else in userspace isn’t going to see the key press nomatter what distro, or keymapping you use.
I am currently resisting the urge to take my laptop apart and start probing the hardware. I guess i should leave it to the experts for now.
@amaury You (and anyone else experiencing this) should probably contact support directly. The email mladen refers to gave me (and presumably others?) return-for-repair instructions.