Brightness hotkeys not working on MacBook 5,2 and 4,1

[David Stansby]

Binary package hint: hal

On a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10, the brightness hotkeys are not working at all on a MacBook5,2.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Sep 21 16:17:06 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
Package: hal 0.5.13-1ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.34-generic
SourcePackage: hal
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic x86_64

[Vince (v-brz)]

I confirm that the same issue is present on macbook 5.3

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

At the moment in Lucid, the hotkeys trigger the brightness notification, but the brightness doesn't actually change.

[John Haitas (jhaitas)]

i can confirm this on macbook 4,1

[John Haitas (jhaitas)]

as suggested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting

[John Haitas (jhaitas)]

a workaround for this is installing 'pommed'

sudo apt-get install pommed

I recommend adding the 'mactel-support' ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mactel-support

[Slick (slick666)]

I can say that on a MacBook 1,1 this is not the case

uname -a
Linux Macintel 2.6.31-15-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 10 14:54:29 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

But the Arch is i686

[Alex Murray (alexmurray)]

I can also confirm that the screen brightness hotkeys work fine on my MacBook Pro 5,1 with Karmic x86_64.

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

I already have pommed installed and the brightness keys still don't work, and I shouldn't have to install any program that doesn't come in the base installation of ubuntu anyway.

I'll have a look through hotkey troubleshooting now to see what I can do.

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

Right, ubuntu is detecting the key press and it's being interpreted as the correct key -

keycode 233 = (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), state = 0x2000
keycode 233 = (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), state = 0x2000
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x2000
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x2000

Gnome-power manager is even popping up a notification, but the actual brightness on the screen isn't changing at all.

[Ricky Campbell (cyberdork33)]

Look through the mactel-support docs as well.

Pommed is only a work-around. The support should be elsewhere.

Ricky

On Nov 28, 2009, at 4:44 AM, David Stansby <email address hidden> wrote:

> I already have pommed installed and the brightness keys still don't
> work, and I shouldn't have to install any program that doesn't come in
> the base installation of ubuntu anyway.
>
> I'll have a look through hotkey troubleshooting now to see what I can
> do.
>
> ** Package changed: hal (Ubuntu) => gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu)
>
> --
> Brightness hotkeys not working on MacBook 5,2 and 4,1
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/434071
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Mactel
> Support, which is the registrant for Mactel Support.
>
> Status in Mactel Support: New
> Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: hal
>
> On a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10, the brightness hotkeys are not
> working at all on a MacBook5,2.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Mon Sep 21 16:17:06 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
> Package: hal 0.5.13-1ubuntu4
> ProcEnviron:
> LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.34-generic
> SourcePackage: hal
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic x86_64
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support
> Post to : <email address hidden>
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support
> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

[Alex Karpenko (alexkarpenko)]

You need the nvidia-bl-dkms package installed AFAIK. I think pommed has been deprecated, so I would suggest removing it. This may be of some help (even though it's for Macbook5,1): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook5-1/Intrepid

You can get to guides for other macbook models from that link, though some guides are less detailed.

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

It seems that the mactel repo isn't available for lucid yet, so I can't try anything in there out for the moment,

[Νίκος Αλεξανδρής (nikos.alexandris)]

Folks,

I read that phrase "pommed has been deprecated" since last year (I think).

The fact is that "pommed":
* does its job and it does so very fast (brightness keys work faster than in OS-X I would say)
* is packaged for Karmic and available through the Mactel PPA
* so far does not give any side-effects

If it is really meant to be abandoned or not used then why is it available?
Thanks, Nikos

[Henrik Rydberg (rydberg)]

Νίκος Αλεξανδρής wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I read that phrase "pommed has been deprecated" since last year (I
> think).
>
> The fact is that "pommed":
> * does its job and it does so very fast (brightness keys work faster than in OS-X I would say)
> * is packaged for Karmic and available through the Mactel PPA
> * so far does not give any side-effects
>
> If it is really meant to be abandoned or not used then why is it available?
> Thanks, Nikos
>

Correct, pommed is supposed to be used together with Karmic. The reason is the
deprecation of HAL; Ubuntu, like several other large distros, are moving away
from hal in favor of udev and the DeviceKit effort. As a result, Karmic is
suffering from functionlity regressions in certain areas, the backlight handling
being one of them. Supposedly, these regressions will all be properly addressed
in Lucid, and in the meantime, the pommed package (with some minor changes) is
suitable as a stand-in.

[Ricky Campbell (cyberdork33)]

Pommed is a "workaround". The bug still exists whether pommed gets the
keys working or not.

Ricky

On Nov 29, 2009, at 5:37 AM, Νίκος Αλεξανδρής <nikos.alexandris@uranus.
uni-freiburg.de> wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I read that phrase "pommed has been deprecated" since last year (I
> think).
>
> The fact is that "pommed":
> * does its job and it does so very fast (brightness keys work faster
> than in OS-X I would say)
> * is packaged for Karmic and available through the Mactel PPA
> * so far does not give any side-effects
>
> If it is really meant to be abandoned or not used then why is it
> available?
> Thanks, Nikos
>
> --
> Brightness hotkeys not working on MacBook 5,2 and 4,1
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/434071
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Mactel
> Support, which is the registrant for Mactel Support.
>
> Status in Mactel Support: New
> Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: hal
>
> On a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10, the brightness hotkeys are not
> working at all on a MacBook5,2.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Mon Sep 21 16:17:06 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
> Package: hal 0.5.13-1ubuntu4
> ProcEnviron:
> LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.34-generic
> SourcePackage: hal
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic x86_64
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support
> Post to : <email address hidden>
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support
> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

[Balucio (bsaul)]

I hope this can help someone:
On my mac-book pro 5.3 with Ubuntu Lucid, I can also confirm that the screen brightness hotkeys is triggered but the brightness not change. I hope the problem is the nvidia-bl-dkms, infact when I deinstal this driver and install mpb-nvidia-dkms the brightness working properly.