I am running openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64) , Linux 3.1.10-1.13-desktop x86_64 + kde 4.7 .
I believe this problem has existed since I installed opensuse 12.1 .
During desktop startup the screen goes dark most but not all of the time. It appears that the brightness control starts set to off. I can recover by using the brightness function keys to set the display back on This is only a nuisance now but was more of a problem until I found the problem.