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#1 2021-04-01 22:56:13

Der Chefkoch
Member
Registered: 2020-12-05
Posts: 100

[SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

The screen on my Dell XPS 9300 is in general very bright. That is to the point where I would like to reduce the minimum brightness so I could downregulate the backlight below the current minimum. At night the screen is just too bright for my taste.

I was looking around a bit, the approaches for Ubuntu I found did not work. Anybody has a suggestion how to further reduce minimum screen brightness under Arch?

Cheers

Last edited by Der Chefkoch (2021-04-02 14:08:30)

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#2 2021-04-01 23:05:24

Morn
Member
Registered: 2012-09-02
Posts: 886

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

"xrandr" with appropriate --brightness (or --gamma) arguments. Only works on X though, not on Wayland. The effect is very similar to the Shades app on macOS...

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#3 2021-04-01 23:48:31

Der Chefkoch
Member
Registered: 2020-12-05
Posts: 100

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

Morn wrote:

"xrandr" with appropriate --brightness (or --gamma) arguments. Only works on X though, not on Wayland. The effect is very similar to the Shades app on macOS...

Great thx, this is working - although I noticed that this is not persistent after reboot and it seems to disable the redshift configuration. Would you have ideas on that?

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#4 2021-04-02 00:16:36

Morn
Member
Registered: 2012-09-02
Posts: 886

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

Der Chefkoch wrote:

Great thx, this is working - although I noticed that this is not persistent after reboot and it seems to disable the redshift configuration. Would you have ideas on that?

If you use Redshift, just change the brightness-day and brightness-night settings in the config file. No need for xrandr at all in that case.

That being said, I think it's better not to color-shift the picture too much. Instead I tend to wear orange glasses at night. The picture looks far more natural than with Redshift's color shifting.

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#5 2021-04-02 10:30:46

Der Chefkoch
Member
Registered: 2020-12-05
Posts: 100

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

Morn wrote:
Der Chefkoch wrote:

Great thx, this is working - although I noticed that this is not persistent after reboot and it seems to disable the redshift configuration. Would you have ideas on that?

If you use Redshift, just change the brightness-day and brightness-night settings in the config file. No need for xrandr at all in that case.

That being said, I think it's better not to color-shift the picture too much. Instead I tend to wear orange glasses at night. The picture looks far more natural than with Redshift's color shifting.

Sorry that was misleading, I do not use the redshift package - I use the nightmode functionality of the budgie desktop.

The xrandr approach works in principle, but it seems to be easy to reset. E.g. firing up a youtube video for the first time will reset the screen brightness.

I might check out redshift, although seems not without its drawbacks: "Redshift has a brightness adjustment setting, but it does not work the way most people might expect. In fact it is a fake brightness adjustment obtained by manipulating the gamma ramps, which means that it does not reduce the backlight of the screen." That sounds like that would not come with the battery saving of a real backlight reduction.

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#6 2021-04-02 10:54:45

Morn
Member
Registered: 2012-09-02
Posts: 886

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

Der Chefkoch wrote:

The xrandr approach works in principle, but it seems to be easy to reset. E.g. firing up a youtube video for the first time will reset the screen brightness.

That should not happen. Have you tried this in a regular window manager too or just in Budgie? Maybe something related to how full-screen video playback is handled...

Der Chefkoch wrote:

I might check out redshift, although seems not without its drawbacks: "Redshift has a brightness adjustment setting, but it does not work the way most people might expect. In fact it is a fake brightness adjustment obtained by manipulating the gamma ramps, which means that it does not reduce the backlight of the screen." That sounds like that would not come with the battery saving of a real backlight reduction.

That is exactly how all these programs (xrandr, Redshift, Shades) work: by dimming the brightness of the content on the screen. The backlight strength stays the same though. So don't expect longer battery life. They are supposed to benefit your eyes, not your battery.

If you want to dim the physical backlight, I think you would need a hardware modification of some kind.

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#7 2021-04-02 14:08:05

Der Chefkoch
Member
Registered: 2020-12-05
Posts: 100

Re: [SOLVED] Setting Laptop Monitor Brightness below Minimum

Morn wrote:

That should not happen. Have you tried this in a regular window manager too or just in Budgie? Maybe something related to how full-screen video playback is handled...

Hm actually I couldn't reproduce the browser video case today, it does now work without resetting. The activation of the built in nightshift mode though is resetting the xrandr modification. In any case, that command is useful to know and I will play around with it.

Morn wrote:

If you want to dim the physical backlight, I think you would need a hardware modification of some kind.

Thanks for pointing that out, it would have been nice if that would also help with the not too impressive battery life under linux. I might have a go at the physical backlight at some later stage.

Thanks for your time and your input!

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