I just successfully installed leap on my Dell inspiron 15 laptop using the 64bit net installer.
I’ve managed to almost completely recreate my customized openbox environment. But
there are a couple things I can’t quite get working right. The most important one of
those is the brightness of my laptop’s screen. I boot to virtual condole And then run
startx when I’m ready for the GUI…
When I boot, I see the boot messages scroll by to fast to read, and for more than
half the boot process the boot messages look normal. But then the display suddenly
gets so dim I have a hard time reading it. This happens with Mageia Linux too, but
at least with Mageia I can restore the brightness by holding the “Fn” key and tapping
the F12 key. But with Opensuse leap “Fn” + “F12” doesn’t do it…
When I run startx I can see the GUI screens a little better. I think I must have
found a solution to this for an earlier release, but I forgot what I did. {it’s been
a while since I had to, because the fix {if there was one} survived being upgraded to
the next release via the zypper dup method.
But since I decided to do a clean install for leap, whatever I’d done to fix it is no
longer on my hard drive…
I have had one instance while configuring my openbox environment when the brightness
was spontaneously restored. But I haven’t a clue what I did. I had been editing the
keybindings in my ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml testing the changes, and using zypper to
install some missing applications and or finding alternatives to set the relevant
keybindings to. I broke for supper. And then noticed the screen was brighter.
But upon reboot it dimmed down again a few seconds before I get a login prompt.
It would appear that on Jun 13, deano ferrari did say:
> I don’t have this hardware, but I wonder if the ‘dell-laptop’ and
> ‘dell-wmi’ drivers are needed for WMI hotkey support perhaps? Are they
> loaded?
>
> FWIW
> http://tinyurl.com/h99kjh8
> http://tinyurl.com/llv5uxe
Since I had no clue that such “drivers” existed, I’d say probably not…
Those links both seam to be about Debian based systems. And sound like I’d have to
roll my own kernel… ouch. Are there available “Modules” for Opensuse that I could
load from an xorg.conf or something???
I just want to get this and a problem with an openbox autostart scripts {that used to
use feh to set a different background image for each of my 12 “desktop areas”} solved
so I can get back to the book I’m writing…
But I’ll have to work on this tomorrow because today I need to get my car inspected
and go visit my daughter {who lives about 80 miles away}… Speaking of which, gotta
go.
I suspected not, but then I don’t have Dell hardware, so never needed them. However, many laptops are supported by various vendor-specific WMI drivers, and those two drivers seem to be mentioned a lot when discussing Dell laptops. I don’t know whether they support your model or not.
Those links both seam to be about Debian based systems. And sound like I’d have to
roll my own kernel… ouch. Are there available “Modules” for Opensuse that I could
load from an xorg.conf or something???
Debian (or otherwise) has nothing to do with it. They are ‘in tree’ kernel modules, and are normally compiled as art of the kernel or as modules. In the case of openSUSE, they’re compiled as modules. So you can get info about them with…
It would appear that on Jun 13, deano ferrari did say:
> jtwdyp;2781953 Wrote:
> > Since I had no clue that such “drivers” existed, I’d say probably not…
> I suspected not, but then I don’t have Dell hardware, so never needed
> them. However, many laptops are supported by various vendor-specific WMI
> drivers, and those two drivers seem to be mentioned a lot when
> discussing Dell laptops. I don’t know whether they support your model or
> not.
>
> > Those links both seam to be about Debian based systems. And sound like
> > I’d have to
> > roll my own kernel… ouch. Are there available “Modules” for Opensuse
> > that I could
> > load from an xorg.conf or something???
> Debian (or otherwise) has nothing to do with it. They are ‘in tree’
> kernel modules, and are normally compiled as art of the kernel or as
> modules. In the case of openSUSE, they’re compiled as modules. So you
> can get info about them with…
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> modinfo dell_wmi
> --------------------
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> modinfo dell_laptop
> --------------------
>
> Check if they’re already loaded…
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> lsmod | grep dell
> --------------------
Oh oh?!?
{sigh} But if their loaded already then that can’t be it. {expletive deleted}
On the other hand one of those links talked about a root kludge of
To me the interesting part was:
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
So Since I was in the ‘easier to see’ Mageia Linux when I read this I thought I’d
find out what it looked like in Mageia. So first I used the other fn key, ‘the F11’
to re-dim the laptop. And peeked at it with something like:
less /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
Which said exactly “100”
Then I used ‘fn’+‘F12’ to fix the brightness again and peeked again.
Again I got exactly “100”
So the working control had no effect on that value?!?
Then when I finished with my email I rebooted into Leap and peeked:
So I back tracked a bit.
Is it just me, or do those values look wrong to anybody who has a clue what they
should be?
So I wonders if using a root shell to blindly poke the wrong values into any of those
could damage something???
A lot will come down to kernel releases…so you might want to tell which kernel is in use in your Mageia install. Also, openSUSE version? Maybe a later kernel will help here.
There are a number of possible causes for backlight control issues. Some of the best diagnostic information is detailed in the following wiki pages. Although aimed at Ubuntu and Arch Linux, it is important to note that most of the information contained there is not distro-specific, so worth reading.
Ultimately, if you can’t resolve the backlight/brightness levels yourself, then a bug report will need to be submitted. Some trial and error may be required too.
I did stumble across this page which discusses a brightness control issue with a Dell Inspiron and an Intel graphics chipset. It mentions a fix using an Xorg configuration snippet eg /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-backlight.conf
It would appear that on Jun 14, deano ferrari did say:
> There are a number of possible causes for backlight control issues. Some
> of the best diagnostic information is detailed in the following wiki
> pages. Although aimed at Ubuntu and Arch Linux, it is important to note
> that most of the information contained there is not distro-specific, so
> worth reading.
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/Backlight
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/backlight
With the help of those links I managed to get a kludge working…
> Ultimately, if you can’t resolve the backlight/brightness levels
> yourself, then a bug report will need to be submitted. Some trial and
> error may be required too.
Well the root script I put in /usr/local/bin And initially call {via sudo} in /etc/rc.local
seems to be working for me.
#!/bin/bash
# note Max brightness is 937...
case $1 in
0*)blv=37;;
1*)blv=137;;
2*)blv=237;;
3*)blv=337;;
4*)blv=437;;
5*)blv=537;;
6*)blv=637;;
7*)blv=737;;
8*)blv=837;;
9*)blv=937;;
*)blv=737;;
esac
echo $blv > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
[quote]
> I did stumble across this ‘page’
> (https://itsfoss.com/fix-brightness-ubuntu-1310/) which discusses a
> brightness control issue with a Dell Inspiron and an Intel graphics
> chipset. It mentions a fix using an Xorg configuration snippet eg
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-backlight.conf
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> Section "Device"Identifier “card0” Driver “intel”
> Option “Backlight” “intel_backlight”
> BusID “PCI:0:2:0” EndSection
> --------------------
>
> No promises that it will resolve your issue, but just wanted to share it
> in case it does. Hopefully, others who have this hardware can chime in.
Yeah, I tried that before I bothered with the above script solution…
the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-backlight.conf had no effect.
But so far the kludge script is, so I’m done with this issue.
