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Since I installed Xubuntu 14.04 on my laptop (Lenovo), the volume up, down, and mute keys on my keyboard don't work. I checked the answers given to questions similar to mine and tried the suggested solutions. These solutions did work for the folks who asked the questions, but they didn't work in my case. Here they are:

First suggested solution: enter the following in Terminal: gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-down gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-mute

Second suggested solution: enter the following in Terminal: dconf reset -f /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/

Can anyone suggest a different solution?

Thanks much, Bob

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  • Same issue here on my Lenovo x220T. :( Your commands seem to work for getting mute to work though! No volume up/down.
    – nmz787
    Jan 6, 2015 at 3:19

2 Answers 2

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Everything works perfectly on my Dell laptop, except the function keys. These should be handled by the hardware but for some reason they are not. The only ones I normally use are the one that turns off the touchpad, the brightness, and the volume keys.

I wrote a script using xinput to toggle the touchpad. I used xbacklight to change the brightness. I used pactl to change the volume and toggle the mute. I was going to try to bind this to the keys but I couldn't located the keys using xmodmap, so I simply used the XFCE keyboard shortcuts tool which was easier anyway.

Whiskey Menu -> Settings -> Keyboard -> Application Shortcuts

You click Add, then enter the command you want to execute, click OK, and press the key that will execute the command.

To increase the brightness:

xbacklight -inc 10

To decrease the brightness:

xbacklight -dec 10

To decrease the volume:

pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo -- -10%

To increase the volume:

pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo -- +10%

To toggle mute:

pactl set-sink-mute alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo toggle

It is possible that your audio device is not the same as mine, alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo. To get the correct name enter the following:

pactl list | grep "Monitor Source:"
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I had the same problem and I solved it thanks to this thread.

  • Open application --> settings--> keyboard
  • Open application shortcuts and click on Add.
  • In the new window enter: amixer set Master 5%+ -q and press OK. Then press your volume up key.
  • Do this again for the volume down using the code amixer set Master 5%- -q
  • You can use the code amixer set Master toggle -q for Mute but this one didn't work very well for me since a second press of the key doesn't restore sound.

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