Greetings! This is my first post so...here goes...
I have a Lenovo Ideapad P500 Laptop model 20210. It came with Windows 8. At one point when I turned on the computer the screen was very dim and the brightness controls did nothing. With Windows 8 there was a driver update that corrected the screen dim problem. I just discovered Linux and downloaded it succesfully and it was all good until the next time I turned on my computer. The screen was (and remains) dim but with Linux I am not sure how to fix it. I don't know how to update drivers in Linux. I have Mint 17.3 Rafaela (I think that's right). Anyway, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi & Welcome to Linux Questions.

Cool that your in Arizona. I have family there in Chandler-

-:-Linux Mint has an Update Manager and an Driver Manager.-:-
See this link for help.

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_qiana_c...n_whatsnew.php

Did you install LM or are you just running it Live?

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, Ztcoracat! I installed Mint on a freshly formatted hard drive. I was so sick of Windows 8 I just wiped it off the drive and formatted over it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to fix the display problem and delve into the Linux world. What I saw before the screen dimmed was pretty impressive. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out! BTW, I live in Litchfield Park which is about 7 miles west of University of Phoenix stadium. Chandler is about 35 miles southeast of the stadium. Thanks again!

-::-You're Welcome.-::-
Let me know if going into the Driver Manager helps.

I've never been to the University of Phoenix stadium....bet it's nice.

1 members found this post helpful.

Still no luck. When I run driver manager the box is blank and it says No Proprietary Drivers Are In Use. The only ones on the Lenovo site are for Windows. I upgraded to Mint 17.3 Rosa today. Can't wait to start using it if I can get this brightness issue resolved. Let me know if you have any ideas. Thanks!

You might have to install a proprietary driver for your graphics card.
What GPU do you have? Run this command and post the output.

1 members found this post helpful.

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core Processor graphics controller (rev 09)

There are Thinkpad extras, designed to handle this kind of hardware. Not sure if they come with Mint and whether they work with Ideapad.

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I'll give it a try tomorrow. Headed to work now. Thanks again!

Found the Intel installer for Linux.

Is your computer 32-bit or 64-bit?
If your not sure I can help you with that.

https://mintguide.org/system/73-inte...for-linux.html

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I do not think Intel driver has anything to do with this problem.

Have you tried setting the brightness by hand? More info here.

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What desktop environment are you using? Cinnamon? Mate? KDE?

Look under 'Power Management'

<OR> If that doesn't work; Try this:

Easy method: fix brightness for an Intel video card
https://sites.google.com/site/easyli...roject/display

It could be Grub causing the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMEpd3zvOoU

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Good link, Ztcoracat!

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Thanks-

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Well guys, thank you! I really appreciate the time and effort you have put into my issue. I methodically tried each suggestion from the link Ztcoracat included in the last post. All of them gave me hope but none of them worked (but it's always good to have hope!!) Anyway, believe it or not, I stumbled onto this

http://linuxg.net/install-brightness...51413-via-ppa/

and even though I am running Mint 17.3, it actually worked!

Thank you again!!