Can't change display brightness on Dell Inspiron 1501

[der_vegi]

Okay, as the hwdb-gui still doesn't work, I'm reporting this here: On my Dell Inspiron 1501 I can't change the display brightness over the hotkey "Fn + up/down".

Feisty daily build from April 9th.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Still doesn't work on Feisty Final.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Still happens on fresh installation of Feisty final.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

the brightness can be changed by "echo -n 62 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness" though.

[JRaspass (jraspass)]

Confirmed on Gutsy up to date as of today. The above command however did work.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Still present in Gutsy with all updates until Oct. 22nd, amd64.

This bug is also upstream: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=469748#c17

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Heho! It works in Hardy daily-live 20071211!

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Now, in Hardy final, this appears again... When I try to set the display brightness with the Fn-keys, the status is displayed (around 80 %, which could be right) but does not change.
Using Hardy amd64 with all updates applied.

[racoon97 (racoon97)]

Yes, for me It's have worked with apha 5 but since beta, doesn"t works anymore.
For me, the status is displayed around 25-30 % and nothing can't change this.

[Dovel (dov01)]

There is a fix for this issue, but I do not know how to make a patch (yet) to submit. The fix is found @ http://www.ubuntu1501.com/2008/04/overview-of-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-on.html . and was blogged by aaronmt (http://www.blogger.com/profile/00032734089773880467).

<quote>
To fix brightness, it's easy as just editing two script files. No bios change whatsoever.

sudo gedit /etc/acpi/video_brightnessup.sh

replace everything in the file with

#!/bin/bash

CURRENT=$(grep "current:" /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness |awk '{print $2}')

case "$CURRENT" in

100)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
87)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
75)
echo -n 87 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
62)
echo -n 75 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
50)
echo -n 62 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
37)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
25)
echo -n 37 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
12)
echo -n 25 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
*)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness ;
;;
esac

sudo gedit /etc/acpi/video_brightnessdown.sh

replace everything in the file with

#!/bin/bash

CURRENT=$(grep "current:" /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness |awk '{print $2}')

case "$CURRENT" in

12)
echo -n 12 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
25)
echo -n 12 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
37)
echo -n 25 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
50)
echo -n 37 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
62)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
75)
echo -n 62 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
87)
echo -n 75 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
100)
echo -n 87 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
*)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness ;
;;
esac

</quote>

There are several positive responses to it with different BIOS releases. Worked great on my 1501 running the 32bit distro.

Isn't this a bug with HAL though, not gnome power manager?

Dov

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Well, the file to edit is in the package acpi-support. Thanks for the fix, I will try that later...

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Thanks very much, this works for me!

[Marlon Cisternas Milla (mcisternas-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi all.

In my Compaq Presario C708LA the display brightness not change. Is a problem of Hardy?

Thanks,

Marlon.

[Augusto Santos (mkhaos7)]

Hello,
Just to let you guys know. The workaround proposed by Dov-El worked like a charm with my Dell Vostro 1000 with Kde3.
Before i was having some issues with multiple key presses but these got fixed with the latest guidance updates.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

Works in Intrepid Alpha 6 for me, although the applet showing the brightness status while changing it, behaves a little bit strange: The brightness bar jumps forward and backward until it reaches the maximum.

[der_vegi (m-may)]

So this is not going to be fixed in Hardy? In 8.04.1, this bug is still present.

[Dovel (dov01)]

Not sure if it will be fixed in Hardy, I used the fix posted above and haven't had any problems since. Brightness works fine in Intrepid, with the power manager resetting the brightness for battery conservation as well.

dov