Is there a way to access DELL XPS media buttons programmatically

Question

If you have seen a Dell XPS in actions you probably have noticed its nice media buttons above the normal keyboard:

alt text http://blog.evolvedsoftwarestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/img-1397.jpg

They are flashing when the notebook is starting and when you touch them.

Does anybody know how to make these buttons flash programmatically?

Answer 1

I had an old IBM laptop that had a keyboard light LED mounted in the top of the LCD frame (where the iSight is on a MacBook or MacBook Pro). I found that I could access this light via /proc/acpi under Linux.

I wrote a simple script that flashed the light on and off by interacting with /proc. There's a posting on my blog with the code.

You might want to try running an Ubuntu live CD and seeing if it detects the buttons, and if you can access them via /proc. A quick search showed that the newer XPS systems work out of the box with Ubuntu, so it'd be a good starting point.