Custom hot key programming with acpid
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 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.