I’ve been using my XPS 13 developer machine more and more over the past few months after recently installing POP_OS (Ubuntu based with a very nice and usable Gnome 3 theme).
Last week I updated to POP_OS 18.10, which brought lots of changes. One of those unexpected changes was the function (F buttons) stopped controlling things like sound, media player, turning on/off keyboard backlighting, turning on/off wireless connectivity.
I wasn’t sure exactly what the issue was until I did some searching – it seems to be an issue on previous upgrades of Ubuntu.
This AskUbuntu article ((Volume control on asus zenbook 3 https://askubuntu.com/questions/906303/volume-control-on-asus-zenbook-3)) talks about the same issue on Ubuntu 16.10.
The fix
The fix is pretty simple. It requires you to open a terminal and edit a configuration file which controls the PulseAudio system application.
1. Open a terminal, you can do this with the keyboard controls by pressing the “super” key then T.
2. Paste into the terminal
sudo nano /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf.common
(you’ll need to enter your root password)
3. In the file, look for this below block:[Element PCM]switch = mutevolume = mergeoverride-map.1 = alloverride-map.2 = all-left,all-right
and replace it with [Element Master]switch = mutevolume = ignore[Element PCM]switch = mutevolume = mergeoverride-map.1 = alloverride-map.2 = all-left,all-right[Element LFE]switch = mutevolume = ignore[Element PCM]switch = mutevolume = mergeoverride-map.1 = alloverride-map.2 = all-left,all-right
4. Save the file changes you’ve made, using the ctrl X keys.
5. The reboot the machine, and test them out. Your Fn keys will then be fixed!
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