Does anyone have laptop-mode-tools screen brightness ability working in Slackware?

kevin01123 · 03-15-2010, 07:59 PM

I'm currently trying to setup a minimal Slackware installation. Everything is well, except for screen brightness/hard disk control via laptop-mode-tools. I was wondering if anyone used it, and if they got it to work on their Slack systems, how they went about doing it.

BILLYKANE · 03-15-2010, 08:14 PM

hello,kevin01123. see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...on-key-785010/. Maybe it would help you.

kevin01123 · 03-16-2010, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BILLYKANE

hello,kevin01123. see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...on-key-785010/. Maybe it would help you.

My function key is working correctly. My problem is the automated brightness control provided by the laptop-mode-tools package doesn't work. I was wondering if anyone using Slackware was using laptop-mode-tools to control their brightness, and, if so, maybe provide insight on how they got it to work. I appreciate the help though.

disturbed1 · 03-16-2010, 06:36 PM

My screen auto darkens after ~30 seconds of no input, then brightens once a key is pressed, or touchpad is moved. The screen also auto brightens on AC power mode. I did absolutely nothing to invoke this condition. Though (I believe) it can be configured through your DE's power manager.
This is with a Dell d830, Nvidia binary drivers, kernel 2.6.33 (recompiled to only remove DRM, and compile in chipset/file system modules) running -current without Emacs updates, Xfce as the DE.

I always thought this was controlled through the BIOS and ACPI calls

I know the kernel has tons of ACPI quirks for specific laptop modules. Post your laptop module, perhaps someone else has the same one, or knows what to do. If not, I'd Google it. Some laptop makers have their own Linux wiki (Think Wiki for IBM/Lenovo).

kevin01123 · 03-16-2010, 07:14 PM

The reason it dims like you say wouldn't happen to be because of xfce4-power-manager, would it? I'm trying to avoid anything bulky for power management, and laptop-mode-tools is the only thing that fits the bill.

disturbed1 · 03-16-2010, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevin01123

The reason it dims like you say wouldn't happen to be because of xfce4-power-manager, would it? I'm trying to avoid anything bulky for power management, and laptop-mode-tools is the only thing that fits the bill.

In Fluxbox, the screen dims on its own as well. But, because I don't have any special acpi scripts installed (reminds me to do this

) closing the lid does not suspend. Plugging in the AC power does not auto-brighten the screen either.

I don't have any experience with laptop-mode-tools, but, on an older laptop I did all this the manual way. hdparm to control spin down, and /sys/devices/platform/* and/or a modified set of Eric's acpi scripts ( http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/tools/ )

Make sure laptop-mode-tools is installed and running correctly, and double check the configs.

Code:

/etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/lcd-brightness.conf

 
 The lcd-brightness module allows you to control the brightness of your LCD
 screen.
 
 
CONTROL_BRIGHTNESS

 When this option is enabled, laptop mode will adjust your LCD screen's
 brightness settings, if possible. You must configure the following settings
 for this to work.
 
 
BATT_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND

 
LM_AC_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND

 
NOLM_AC_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND

 
BRIGHTNESS_OUTPUT

 The BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND settings specify commands that should be executed
 in order to set the brightness of your LCD. The BRIGHTNESS_OUTPUT setting
 specifies where the output of the command will be written. For instance,
 if your LCD's brightness is adjusted by writing a numeric value 3 to a file
 called /proc/brightness, you should set the command to "echo 3" and the
 output file to "/proc/brightness". If your LCD's brightness is adjusted
 using a utility like "toshset", you should include the entire toshset
 command line as the command, and set the output file to "/dev/null".

The program looks interesting, I may have to check it out in detail at a latter time