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Linux: How to setup keyboard media buttons in KDE

Posted By Scott Klarr on Dec 25, 2007 at 5:23 pm

Setup Media/Shortcut Keys

Got a keyboard that has built in media or shortcut keys such as volume adjustment, play/pause, application launchers, etc? Are you running linux and thought the usage of these buttons was out of the question? You might be surprised as I was how easily you can integrate those buttons to do pretty much anything you need without complicated requirements and without even installing any drivers. In fact, you can set it up completely using KDE's friendly GUI configuration panel.

Keyboard Layout

First thing we must do is let KDE know that our keyboard is not a standard layout (as in, it has extra buttons). Pull up the control center panel by going to Kmenu->Tools->System Tools->Control Center.

Figure 1

In the left pane, click on the Keyboard Layout item located under the Regional & Accessibility group.

Figure 2

In the right pane, under the Layout tab, check the box labeled Enable Keyboard Layouts.

Figure 3

Next, drop down the Keyboard Model list and find your keyboard. This list contains a quite large list of the most popular keyboards. If your keyboard is not specifically listed, you can experiment with similar listings. For example, right now I'm writing this using a Logitech Cordless Internet Pro keyboard, but it is not specifically listed, so I chose Logitech Internet Keyboard, and it works great.

Configure Shortcuts

Some shortuts may automatically work as soon as you setup the keyboard layout. For example, when I changed the keyboard layout to Logitech Internet Keyboard, the volume up/down, email, and browser buttons were already setup and worked. The others you will need to setup manually.

There are two options for manually configuring shortcuts. First, most applications will allow you to modify local shortcuts for that particular program (that program usually must be actively selected, though). Alternatively, you can setup global shortcuts that work no matter what application window is currently active. You can do this through the Input Actions panel under the KDE control panel. I will be writing a tutorial on that shortly.

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