Brightness notification don't see when Dell auto-brightness is activated and doesn't follow it's settings

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek]

Binary package hint: notify-osd

Brightness level is usually properly displayed by Karmic. However, I noticed one exception in my Dell Latitude E6500.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Make brightness as low as possible (notification will show 0 level)
2) Turn on automatic brightness adjustment (using Fn+autobrightness key combination) which will increase brightness level

What happens:
Brightness is well-adjusted, but Ubuntu seems not to know it - you can check it by moving brightness manually (which turns automatic brightness function off) one level up and one level down - Ubuntu will show a notification that it's again at 0 level whereas it's not; you can lower it a few steps lower.

What should happen:
I see two options:
1) Ubuntu should follow Dell autobrightness settings and display a notification each time it changes
2) Ubuntu should know it can't follow this settings and the next time you try to change brightness level up or down it should first discover current brightness level so that the displayed value would be accurate.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
CheckboxSubmission: b35340b6290029563207fd4b2aa461a1
CheckboxSystem: d00f84de8a555815fa1c4660280da308
Date: Thu Oct 15 06:20:59 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
GtkTheme: Human
IconTheme: Humanity
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Alpha amd64 (20091008)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E6500
Package: notify-osd 0.9.23-0ubuntu1
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=e53695eb-254d-4e3f-a123-fbad8c303dd9 ro
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.46-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu5
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
 libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
SourcePackage: notify-osd
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
WindowManager: compiz
dmi.bios.date: 05/08/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A13
dmi.board.name: 0NY667
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA13:bd05/08/2009:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6500:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0NY667:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E6500
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Brightness notification bubbles are only meant to be triggered by direct user-input (hardware-keys) via gnome-power-manager.

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek (mgol)]

I don't understand why You made this invalid. This is the fact - brightness displayed by bubbles doesn't reflect reality when auto-brightness is activated. That's true. You may choose not to display the bubble when switching to auto-brightness, but then when You change it up or down, a notification is displayed and it shows a value that is *NOT* true.

For me it's still a bug.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

It is not a bug of notify-osd for sure. notify-osd displays the value it gets from gnome-power-manager (g-p-m). g-p-m in turn gets its data (brightness-value) from DeviceKit (at least under Karmic aka Ubuntu 9.10). How data flows below DeviceKit I do not know. The kernel-folks might know about the details in that area.

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek (mgol)]

OK, reassigning to devicekit-power, thanks for pointing.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.