Hi everyone,
I have an Acer 4810T laptop with Intel graphics. I run openSUSE 11.3, and am about to upgrade to 11.4. But both systems still have a very bad bug with screen brightness.
The Fn+Arrow keys do change screen brightness, but after using them the system is rendered extremely sluggish and unresponsive. This sluggishness is most pronounced with a very important Wine app I need to use. The only way to fix the sluggishness is to reboot.
With 11.4, the problem is worse because the system boots and automatically partially dims the screen, thus making it even more necessary to change the brightness.
Neither Gnome nor KDE are able to change the brightness via their power managers. This means that I can’t dim my screen automatically upon disconnecting the A/C power.
I have read many experiences from Ubuntu and openSUSE users, who all have the same problem. I have tried both intellegacy and the new intel drivers, and they both have the problem. I have read that some users have improved the situation by upgrading or downgrading the BIOS. Others have been experimenting with kernel patches:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireTimeline/Fixes
https://launchpad.net/~kamalmostafa/+archive/linux-kamal-mjgbacklight
But I’m too dumb to patch my kernel. Does anybody have a solution? This issue is especially annoying because with older kernel versions it just worked, and this regression is very hard for a normal person to diagnose and fix.
Thanks in advance for your help!