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windsheep

Member

Registered: 2011-06-29

Posts: 17

Brightness on Samsung RC530 - Hotkeys vs. samsung-tools

Hi!

I'm using samsung-tools, which I installed from yaourt. It gets useful functions for key-mappings to (de)activate backlight, the camera, wlan and to adjust CPU fan-speed. For me they are necessary since I like working (longer) away from power supply.

I use KDE, and before I ever used samsung tools FN + Up/Down-Array adjusted my brightness. Now I press one of these key combinations and I see a flickering. No adjustment happening.

Here's the config

~  ᐅ more .xbindkeysrc
"SamsungToolsDummyCommand"
  Control+Alt+Shift+Mod4+F1+F2+F3
"samsung-tools --show-notify --quiet --backlight hotkey"
  XF86Launch1
"samsung-tools --show-notify --quiet --bluetooth hotkey"
  XF86Launch2
"samsung-tools --show-notify --quiet --cpu hotkey"
  XF86Launch3
"samsung-tools --show-notify --quiet --webcam hotkey"
  Alt+KP_Insert
"samsung-tools --show-notify --quiet --wireless hotkey"
  XF86WLAN

Is there any way to find out what's in my way between brightness-adjustment and hotkey?

Best,
windsheep

msx

Member

From: solar.system/earth/ar/bue/mdp

Registered: 2010-08-08

Posts: 184

Website

Re: Brightness on Samsung RC530 - Hotkeys vs. samsung-tools

Seems there's a conflict between KDE SC's built-in function and the function provided by the package.
If you need to squeeze the most of your battery while working offline you should try to tweak your system to use the least energy while remaining useful for what you need it.
Try using extra/powertop (by now you will need to run it every time you boot up), acpid + cpu-freq (with governor in conservative or even powersave) and if your hardware is Intel try adding to your kernel line:
hpet=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 pcie_aspm=force irqpoll i915.lvds_downclock=1 radeon.pcie_gen2=1 (if there's an ATi card)  i915.semaphores=1 acpi_backlight=vendor
You can also tweak the vm.swappiness value in /etc/sysctl.conf to 10 if you have plenty memory to avoid too-much hard disk write and install laptop-mode package and add the daemon to your /etc/rc.conf.
Last, when I work unplugged I tend to use dwm WM which consumes way less resources than KDE SC then extending battery life for something like an hour. I encourage you to try minimal WMs for your work offline -Musca, Ratpoison, dwm, you know, something very minimal- and even to work from your console when you don't need an X server up and draining your battery.

Last edited by msx (2012-06-10 09:02:54)

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Enjoying i3wm w/ lifebar + j4-dmenu-desktop + tab_windows / fish shell / Emacs / tmux / Konsole / KDE apps
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