Custom hot key programming with acpid
Key In
© Nikolai Sorokin, Fotolia
A little research from the command line and a short script bends your keyboard to your will.
Linux support for laptops has improved by leaps and bounds in the last decade. At this point, if you buy a laptop from any of the major manufacturers and load a Linux distro with a reasonably recent kernel version, things pretty much "just work" – problems with proprietary display drivers aside.
What can sometimes not work, however, are some of the vendor-specific hot keys on the keyboard. For example, I do a lot of presentations, and I'd like the hot key that's supposed to switch between my laptop display and an external monitor (Fn+F7 on my ThinkPad) to work under Linux. In this article, I describe my solution for this problem and offer some pointers for customizing hot key events.
Getting to Know acpid
Most Linux systems support ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface [1]), a popular standard for device configuration and power management. The ACPI standard specifies a structure for defining and customizing hardware events. In Linux, the acpid daemon [2] listens for ACPI events and maps each event to an action. Hot key events are typically handled by acpid.
[...]
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.