Problem with persisting [Esc] lock between shutdowns/restarts

[TheMegulator]

Hi All,

I am sorry for posting this request here but I am not sure anywhere else will be more able to help. If I am in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing please say.

I have an Asus Zenbook UX363EA, I have ubuntu 24.10 installed. I have installed the WMI driver (UX5401), stylus driver and touchpad/numpad driver (UP5401EA). I have recently (yesterday) done a clean install of Ubuntu. Prior to this I believe I had the same set up as described above. However, previously [Esc] lock settings would persist between shutdowns/restarts. Now they do not, so that now every time I boot/restart I have to press [Fn] + [Esc] to turn off the [Esc] lock. I don't know what I've done differently when installing the drivers now, than when I did it last time. Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

I should say when I first installed ubuntu (23.10) I had the same [Esc] lock issue and installing drivers from this GIT solved the issue. I don't know though!

Thank you for taking any time to read and (if you do) respond to this.

W.

[ldrahnik]

Hi, the question perfectly fits these repositories. Unfortunatelly, I do not understand your problem, yet. Do you want have Fn key? Go to BIOS and find Fn lock or Esc lock.

[TheMegulator]

Hi Idrahnik,

Thank you :) ! I have been into the BIOS / UEFI and checked the Fn Lock behaviour. When enabled I am able to toggle Fn Lock on and off by pressing [Fn] + [Esc]. When disabled I am not able to toggle Fn Lock. In the disabled setting I have to press for example [Fn] + [F2] to turn down the volume. I prefer to have the BIOS / UEFI Fn Lock setting enabled.

The issue that I have is that the toggle does not persist between reboots / restarts. So each time I reboot the laptop the Fn Lock is toggled on and I have to toggle it off to use the hotkeys. Then the next time I reboot I have to toggle the Fn Lock off again as it has reset to 'on'. This is annoying, especially as the toggle position (on/off) persisted through reboots previously.

I have the UX5401 WMI driver installed, and when I installed it I said 'yes' to every question. I am able to uninstall and reinstall and answer differently and / or use a different driver if you suggest?

Thank you again,

Will

PS I'm on 3 longs days from tomorrow morning (UK time) so responses from me are likely to be slow for the next few days!

[ldrahnik]

@TheMegulator Did you try what was posted by @citizenserious in comment below - link? It looks like it could work. I would add it to the repository random-notes because it could help someone else. In case it does work.

Expected solution in summary:

Try to add these two lines:

#Toggle fnlock_default at boot (Y/N)
options asus_wmi fnlock_default=N

to the file sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and reload & reboot like this:

$ sudo update-initramfs -u -k all; reboot

[TheMegulator]

Dear Idrahnik and Citizenserious

Firstly the suggested solution appears to work! Thank you! I've just included the new code in alsa-base.conf as suggested and rebooted using the command recommended and on reboot Fn lock is off. Thank you Citizenserious for the code and Idrahnik for simplifying it for me!

Secondly, I am sorry that it's taken me so long to try the fix and report back, that 3 days turned into 2 weeks and life also decided to throw a curve ball. thank you for your patience.

Gratefully,

TheMegulator

[ldrahnik]

@TheMegulator Please mark answer of @citizenserious or mine as accepted. I changed the area of question to Q&A, it Is allowed now. Have a good day

[citizenserious]

I am having the same behavior on my Asus (UX433FN) this is on my To-Do List for a while now. I have found something while looking a few months ago, but I haven't tried it yet.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=368164