fn buttons dim and brighten screen to fast

[Shawn vega]

fn keys brighten and dim the screen to fast ( I can get from brightest to dimest settings by pressing fn + down two times).

computer is a dell inspiron 1420
Description: Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)
Release: 8.10
$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.27-2-generic #1 SMP Thu Aug 28 17:20:02 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Shawn,

I assume if you go to System->Preferences->Power Management, under the "On AC Power" tab in the "Display" section if you slide the "Set display brightness to:" slider, it's works as anticipated. It's just the Fn+Down Arrow and Fn+ Up Arrow hotkeys that you experience the aggressive screen dimming? Assuming this is the case, can you try doing:

sudo /etc/init.d/hotkey-setup stop
Fn+Down or Fn+Up (to dim/brighten the screen and hopefully notice screen dimming working as you expect)
sudo /etc/init.d/hotkey-setup start

[Shawn vega (svega85-gmail)]

Using the slider works perfectly.
I did what you said:
sudo /etc/init.d/hotkey-setup stop
after that it was working better. now it takes 4 presses instead of 2 (although the screen actually has 8 brightness levels)
but after
sudo /etc/init.d/hotkey-setup start
everything goes back to the way it was originally.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Shawn,

This might also be a duplicate of bug 22698. It's regarding a different Dell model laptop but seems to describe the same issue you are seeing here. Just thought you might want to subscribe to that other report as well. Thanks.

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

I'm experiencing exactly what's described in this bug, but I think it's not a duplicate of bug #215217, since that's probably a duplicate of bug #257827 (brightness changes twice with every key press).

I think this is a bug elsewhere (gnome-power-manager or hotkey-setup, I don't know), since after stopping hotkey-setup or killing gnome-power-manager I'm only affected by bug #257827.

If you need more tests or log files please let me know.

[Shawn vega (svega85-gmail)]

I agree with you but at the same time the way they said to fix it (which was to blacklist video http://ge.ubuntuforums.com/showpost.php?s=d308ad71f7d328052c8f6e0b31dd1f6c&p=5569887&postcount=2 ) actually worked for me. but i don't know if that would make it the same bug???

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

I've noticed that when you blacklist the video module, g-p-m reads correctly the laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware key (which should be true for these laptops). On the other hand, when the video module is not blacklisted, I get "not found. Assuming false". So, that's why blacklisting the video module fixes this brightness problem in g-p-m for you.

I *think* (please devs comment on this) the problem is g-p-m not reading the laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware key correctly, and that should be the fix for this bug.

I'm attaching g-p-m verbose output after loading it (video module not blacklisted).

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

lshal output (video module not blacklisted).

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

I've found that the laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware key has no effect in this bug.
It's fixed for me by commenting the following lines in /usr/share/hotkey-setup/dell.hk:

setkeycodes e005 $KEY_BRIGHTNESSDOWN # Fn+Down Brightness Down (e005)
setkeycodes e006 $KEY_BRIGHTNESSUP # Fn+Up Brightness Up (e006)

[Shawn vega (svega85-gmail)]

Juan, I tried your fix and it seemed to work just as well as all the other fixes, but just like the other fixes I still don't have all 8 brightness levels (I have 4 Levels now (as opposed to 2)) unless I adjust it in power management. which makes me think that this bug might be a combination of a couple of bugs, or its own bug. I'm Not sure though.

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

That's what I'm saying. This bug is about getting only 3 brightness levels, which is fixed by doing what I said in my previous comment.
Bug #215217 is about brightness changing twice for each key press, so this bug should not be a duplicate of that bug.
Also, bug #215217 is probably a duplicate of bug #257827.