Is there a way to access DELL XPS media buttons 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.