My laptop always boots with full screen brightness & I am looking to extend battery life. I am using KDE & there no longer seems to be a brightness option in power profiles, I guess I’ll need to auto run a script on start up?
Which version of KDE are you using?
Similar reports here (if referring to KDE 4.11):
On my laptop (with Intel graphics), there is a brightness option. On my desktop, there isn’t. In previous KDE versions, the brightness control did not work on my desktop anyway.
On an older laptop, there is no brightness option. My guess is that the radeon driver for the graphics card on that box does not currently support brightness change. Since it’s a 9-year old computer, I’ll probably have to live with that. In any case, that box has been relegated to testing use (such as testing beta releases of opensuse).
Not sure, but the latest Tumbleweed. Annoyingly battery has no show as percentage anymore.
Why are you not sure? You can easily find out with YaST Software Management or from Help > About on any KDE App. With Tumbleweed, I would expect the answer to be KDE 4.11.2.
I use a ThinkPad SL, and Tumbleweed with KDE 4.11.2, and I have the brightness slider at System Settings > Power Management > Energy Saving, and you can also access by right-clicking on Battery Monitor in system tray. I also have Battery Monitor (system tray) showing percentage.
You may have had a problem while upgrading your KDE packages. I use a plain zypper dup without any changes to repo priorities. 
OK, I will check my KDE version when next on laptop. I have a ThinkPad Edge325 with AMD APU, like I say no brightness control as of the mo’.
Correct. KDE 4.11.2. Maybe it’ll sort itself with next upgrade? (13.1?) I used --from Tumbleweed switch for ages (from 12.3 release/base) as had some non standard repos, or so I thought. Was advised to use plain ol’ zypper dup, normal priorities since. Could I simply be missing a package?
Maybe, but it could be a kernel module support issue. By brightness, I assume that means backlight level. What is reported when you enter the command *xbacklight *in terminal as normal user?
If it reports a number for the level, then xbacklight can be used to set the level (use xbacklight --help to see command options), but it might not persist across a reboot.
Screen brightness control has now returned with 13.1 update! I can set the brightness for all three power schemes & it is preserved between boots. No show battery as percentage though.
: ( Annoying bar graph ) :
Glad to hear that. Will run zypper dup to convert mine to 13.1 soon. My standard 13.1/KDE running in a VM gives battery percentage when mousing over the system tray’s battery icon (hidden but viewed via the small triangle).
What about if you hover cursor over the batter widget icon? Does it then show percentage figure?
…also if you right-click on the battery monitor icon, it should be possible to change settings to allow charge info to be shown.
Mmm, tasty. Does it coat fish? 