Fedora 7 on Precision M6300, laptop function buttons

I just installed Fedora 7 on an Inspiron M6300 laptop. Fedora did not recognize the newer graphics and CD-ROM hardware, so I had to install in text mode from an external USB drive. I could not figure out any kernel options to make the internal CDROM work from the installer, but there are no problems using it after the system is installed. I still would like to figure out the right kernel options, because the same problem occurs if I try to boot the DVD in rescue mode. It probably has to do with habing both SATA and PATA active. Other than the installation difficulties, everything seems to be working well, once the NVidia proprietary driver was installed. One thing that did not work automatically are the system function keys and media buttons. I found these mappings for the front media keys: keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop The function keys, like CD eject, are not as easy. They show up as unknown scan codes, but mapping them to key events does not work because they do not generate release events, and result in continuous key-repeat events. Is Dell unique here? This Gnome bug relates to this problem: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339110 I don't see any problem with one-shot system buttons, but one Gnome developer claims: "Dell hardware is stupid(tm). ... It's not a hal or g-p-m bug." Is there a way to map laptop keys to an event other than a keyboard key? Has anyone gotten these function keys to work?