Have anyone else running "trixie" run into the problems described in the
sibject? (googling seems to indicate the answer is "no"...?)
On July 24 2026 I suddenly discovered that the function keys on my Acer
laptop[1], running "trixie" only did their hardware functions, such as
brigthening backlight, toggle touchpad on and off and turning sound up
and down, but not their function keys operations (such as e.g. Fn+F8 for
"F8").
So I did what I always do in such cases: I started googling.
Some Acers have "ESC+Fn" as a toggle for switching the "Fn" key (known
as "hotkeys" in case you're googling) on and off.
But on my Acer Aspire 5 "ESC+Fn" had no effect, so the next proposal in
the list was to enter the BIOS and look at, and possibly change, the
hotkeys setting.
But the BIOS was password protected... and I couldn't remember when or
why I would set a password. I tried two of my common ones and both
failed and avoiding a third time I rebooted and continued my life
without Fn keys.
Further googling told me I had most probably run into a known acer issue
where an NVRAM overwrite causes a bogus BIOS password. Others are much
worse off than me: they can't boot.
And my laptop boots just fine after installing new kernels.
The kernel upgrade that triggered it was the upgrade from 6.12.95-1 to
6.12.96-1 I did on July 22, and since then "trixie" have gotten 4 new
kernels.
So rather than risk bricking the laptop I have lived without the Fn key.
But there are questions I would like to know the answer to so I am
asking here:
1. Am I on the right track with suspecting an NVRAM overwrite done by a
kernel upgrade for both the BIOS password and the missing Fn keys?
And if not both, are one of them probably right?
(google AI keeps telling me this is the case, but have been unable
to direct me to any URLs stating clearly that this is the case)
2. If "1" is right, do I need to lock the BIOS and get an unlock key to
enter the BIOS and set the hotkeys to get Fn back?
3. Or does the Fn issue have nothing to do with NVRAM update? Was it
caused by an X/wayland update at around the same time? Is there a
way to get Fn back without messing with the BIOS at all=
Thanks!
- Steinar
PS other than this Fn issue the Acer Aspire as worked well and smoothly
since I first installed bullsey on it in July 2022[1]
References:
[1]
<https://steinar.bang.priv.no/2022/07/31/installing-debian-11-bullseye-using-pxe-boot-on-an-acer-aspire-5-a515-45-laptop/>
