pommed fails to handle macbook pro (c2d) keyboard backlight

[ruebezahl]

Binary package hint: pommed

keyboard backlight is turned on every boot eventough it's disabled in /etc/pommed.conf
sometimes it's being turned on again randomly

i tried pommed 1.2 and 1.6
outputs of pommed -f and pommed.conf follow

[ruebezahl (ruebezahl)]

with pommed 1.8

I: SMBIOS machine check: running on a MacBookPro2,2
W: Could not open /sys/class/leds/smc:kbd_backlight/brightness: No such file or directory

[ruebezahl (ruebezahl)]

maybe applesmc bug?
see Bug #128787 and Bug #130613

[ruebezahl (ruebezahl)]

with applesmc loaded by hand

I: SMBIOS machine check: running on a MacBookPro2,2
I: Found applesmc at /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/light
E: Not primary DBus name owner
W: Could not connect to DBus system bus

[ruebezahl (ruebezahl)]

with applesmc loaded by hand

I: SMBIOS machine check: running on a MacBookPro2,2
I: Found applesmc at /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/light
E: Not primary DBus name owner
W: Could not connect to DBus system bus

still doesn't work correctly

[Matthias Bohnen (mbohnen)]

I have the same problem and did some investigations.

The error message "Not primary DBus name owner" occurs because the pommed daemon is already running in the background and you can't start it twice. (Well, you can, but you get this dbus error.)

Do a "pgrep pommed", it will return a process id, then do a "sudo kill" for this process id. This will kill the daemon and after that you can "sudo pommed -d" from the console without any errors.

If applesmc was not yet added to "/etc/modules", pommed will run but never receive any dbus messages from the light sensor. The output in the console will be:

Processing DBus requests
Checking messages
Done with DBus requests
Processing DBus requests
Checking messages
Done with DBus requests
Processing DBus requests
Checking messages
Done with DBus requests
...

If you add applesmc to the /etc/modules file, reboot, kill the pommed daemon and start pommed -d from the console you can see from pommed's output that it works fine, it receive dbus messages and automatic keyboard illumination will work.

I verified that pommed does NOT ignore the settings in "/etc/pommed.conf".

However, even though applesmc is running, and pommed works when executed in the console, I still have the problem that on every boot the keyboard backlight is turned on!

I noticed that even when neither the pommed daemon nor pommed in the console is running, changing the backlight intensity with (FN-) F8/F9/F10 still works. I have no idea why.

[rsgl (skyelewin)]

This is still a problem for me. Ubuntu 8.04, MacBook Pro. I've tweaked the pommed.conf file and it seems that pommed is just ignoring everything in that section.

The keyboard backlight keys work (F8, F9, F10) but pommed automatically turns the backlight on to 100% every time I log in.

I want to be able to set it so it leaves the backlight off when I log in... So i don't have to manually turn it off every time.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

In Ubuntu 8.10, the light is not switched on automatically, and you cannot switch it on manually either (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/125918).

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Any news on this issue?

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

For some reason I do not know, today for the first time the keyboard illumination worked when booting. However, it instantly went out after logging in.

Testing on Ubuntu 8.10 64-Bit as of today, MacBook Pro rev. 3.

Btw. what's the difference between this bug report and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/71808?

[Aleksander Morgado (aleksander-m)]

Is there any update on this?

[Ricky Campbell (cyberdork33)]

pommed is depreciated now. You should be able to get the backlight working without it.
See here for documentation for your Mac:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages

[Chascon (chascone)]

Ricky: You mean deprecated?

What's replacing it? It's 2011 now and I when I installed Natty, the F keys didn't work out of the box. I had to install pommed. And now I just upgraded to Oneiric and it's working but really wonky on this release, whereas before it functioned as expected.