Brightness keys not working

Skyflier · 2015-01-31 21:54:59

Hi,
I'm having a problem with brightness keys on my HP laptop, they do not work at all.
They are activated by pressing a combination with the FN keys.
My laptop has an Intel GMA graphics card and I'm using XFCE currently.

In some testing I found out the possible cause of the problem, which is the fact that X.org is mapping the two key combinations with the same keycode.

Keycode 465 press
Keycode 465 release

I believe this shouldn't be happening since both FN+Increase and FN+Decrease brightness are recognized with the same code, they won't work.

Anyone knows how to fix this?

Knute · 2015-02-01 06:46:08

As I do not have much experience with laptops, and am still currently using crt monitors, I don't have much experience with this, so I apologize if my advice is sketchy.

Since you are talking about adjusting the backlight brightness, a quick search in pacman reveals some nvidia backlight programs (nvidia-bl and nvidiabl and nvidiablctl among others) that do what you are looking for.

I'm not sure if these programs are set up to use the default brightness keybindings or not. If they don't then you will need to set up those keys to activate the brightness increase and decrease as appropriate.

Does that make sense?

Ooops... Just read intel.. there is xorg-xbacklight as well. Sorry, wrong card.

Last edited by Knute (2015-02-01 06:47:48)

SyncroMaverick · 2015-02-01 09:11:41

Are you able to adjust brightness with the power-settings?
If NOT it has nothing to with keysettings and you might want to try the following kernel command at boot: 'acpi-backlight=vendor'

Skyflier · 2015-02-01 11:25:13

SyncroMaverick wrote:

Are you able to adjust brightness with the power-settings?
If NOT it has nothing to with keysettings and you might want to try the following kernel command at boot: 'acpi-backlight=vendor'

Yes I'm able to change brightness through the power settings and using xbackllght in the terminal. Either way, which vendor should I choose for the kernel parameter? I know "Linux" comes by default since kernel 3.16 so since I have "acpi_video0" I don't know which vendor to choose from.

Knute · 2015-02-01 11:45:00

Actually acpi_backlight=vendor IS the entry, and vendor is the setting.

NME · 2015-02-01 11:48:38

If xbacklight works you could also work around it with a few custom keybindings?

I.e. my i3 config says:

 41 # backlight keys
 42 bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown   exec xbacklight -dec 5 && pkill -RTMIN+20 i3blocks
 43 bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp     exec xbacklight -inc 5 && pkill -RTMIN+20 i3blocks

Arch Linux

#1 2015-01-31 21:54:59

Brightness keys not working

#2 2015-02-01 06:46:08

Re: Brightness keys not working

#3 2015-02-01 09:11:41

Re: Brightness keys not working

#4 2015-02-01 11:25:13

Re: Brightness keys not working

#5 2015-02-01 11:45:00

Re: Brightness keys not working

#6 2015-02-01 11:48:38

Re: Brightness keys not working

Board footer