OpenSuse 11.4 Samsung R580 with GF 330M

English Hardware
#1

Hi, I’m new here. I have been using Ubuntu for about 2 years, but now I want tray to use sth else - I choose OpenSuse 11.4. I have a problem with brightness control - I can’t change the level of brightness. I have closed nvidia driver installed. When I used Ubuntu there were the same problem, but I could solve it using this how to: Linux On My Samsung • View topic - HOWTO: Use the repository on K/Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04

How to activate brightness control?

can anybody help, please?

My laptop:
Samsung R580
Nvidia GF 330M

#2

Hi lawked, Im new here too and i have the same laptop or very similar.
First of all Nvidia Settings (Control panel) takes almost absolute control of the screen. You must be sure that all Nvidia drivers are properly installated. [http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers](OpenSUSE 11.4 Nvidia Installation).
Once in Nvidia Settings you may change Contrast, Gamma and Brightness.

There’s an alternative way to enable and use the hotkeys FN+up or down arrows.
You need to open the Console and follow the next steps:
1° Type su -c ‘telinit 3’ (entering Console Mode)
2° Sign in as user.
3° Type sudo nvidia-xconfig
4° Type sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf (this comand will open the text file in the console application)
5° Use Alt+i and you will se at the bottom of the console the word Insert, that will allow you to modify the text file.
6° Look up for the option Devices and add the following line:
Option “RegistryDwords” “EnableBrightnessControl=1”
7° Use Alt+y. At the bottom of the console the word Insert will dissappear.
8° Go to the end of the file and type :w (this will write all changes)
9° Type :q ( this will exit the text file)
10° Type su -c ‘telinit 5’ (This will reboot you laptop)
11° Enjoy the Fn functions

I hope this is what you’re looking for.

#3

Sorry I didn’t see this earlier. You can use the samsung-backlight driver provided by the Voria PPA to enable the FN brightness buttons on your samung laptop.

If you are still interested or if anyone else is interested this guide may be useful.

*Tested on a Samsung R510/P510 and R530/R730, openSUSE 11.4

How to enable Samsung Fn Brightness buttons in openSUSE 11.4

Please make sure your system is fully up to date, if you are not sure update your system this very moment and reboot.

1. Compile and Install the samsung-backlight driver

Open a terminal

su -c 'zypper install gcc make kernel-devel'

mkdir samsung

cd samsung

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16953763/samsung-backlight.c

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16953763/Makefile

make

su -c 'cp samsung-backlight.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/'

su -c 'depmod -a'

2. Add acpi_backlight=vendor to your kernel grub entry

Navigate to YaST > System > Boot Loader

Highlight your default kernel entry as shown in the picture below, then click on the ‘Edit’ button.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_-5GrmpmXtLM/TclMegtzRKI/AAAAAAAABe8/xOcJ54Jq07s/1.jpg

In the Optional Kernel Command Line Parameter box add acpi_backlight=vendor as illustrated below.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_-5GrmpmXtLM/TclMf2hKOxI/AAAAAAAABfA/p46mRHlBb4w/2.jpg

Click on ‘OK’ when finished.

3. Additional step for proprietary Nvidia users only (Not applicable to Intel / ATi or Nouveau users)

As an Nvidia user you may also need to add Option “RegistryDwords” “EnableBrightnessControl=1” to your xorg.conf as described in the post above.

4. Reboot your system.

If everything goes well your Fn Brightness buttons will now be functional. However, please note that after every kernel update you will how to recompile the samsung-backlight module and insert it in your kernel.

Therefore do not delete the samsung folder.

4.1 To regain the Fn button functionality after a Kernel update

cd samsung

make

su -c 'cp samsung-backlight.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/'

su -c 'depmod -a'

And reboot your system.

#4

I have simmilar problem on openSUSE 12 x86_64 (laptop samsung r780 nvidia330)
is this procedure safe in my case (i can just do it but I have no guaranty that I will not have blank screen :D)

*btw if (for example) after boot graphic driver is not working correctly can I press ALT+F1-6 to change to ‘console mode’ ? (I’m a linux noob)

#5

Cannot say at the moment; I cannot get the rebuilt samsung-laptop module to load because of the kernel module.symver functionality.

I had problems with the open source Nvidia driver when I first installed (left the screen with a chess board pattern); I was able to perform a safe-mode boot (I think this uses some VGA fall-back mode) and was then able to install the Nvidia repository and then get access to the Nvidia proprietary driver; which detected everything correctly and just worked.