Lethe, I spoke to the user who reported the Phoenix BIOS and it looks like there is no problem with that version. The current kernel patches should fix the problem for all the known cases. This is what the user said:
"As of this date, and with the latest updates (as of yesterday)... Brightness and volume controls work perfectly. Volume controls interface perfectly with Ubuntu (that is, the volume indicator matches the volume settings). The Ubuntu brightness indicator does not work, but the keys do. I've never experienced any problems with function key locking behaviour"
Lethe, I spoke to the user who reported the Phoenix BIOS and it looks like there is no problem with that version. The current kernel patches should fix the problem for all the known cases. This is what the user said:
"As of this date, and with the latest updates (as of yesterday)... Brightness and volume controls work perfectly. Volume controls interface perfectly with Ubuntu (that is, the volume indicator matches the volume settings). The Ubuntu brightness indicator does not work, but the keys do. I've never experienced any problems with function key locking behaviour"