Screen Brightness with Mint 17.2 Cinnamon

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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21

Thanks @Stone, but spiders instructions worked to a T.

Many thanks to you both for the help. This was the only issue so far I had come across. Very happy with the switch from Windows 10

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Nice! You should be able to use the slider or the function keys to reduce / increase the brightness level right?

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Yes Fn keys + slider + terminal commands all work.

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anything else not working? mic, camera, volume etc?

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Sweeeeet!

Anyway it's a bug with Ubuntu / Mint, that hasn't been solved yet it seems.

Glad you are enjoying Linux so far! :D

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No mic or camera as this is an older laptop.

The volume was giving me a minor issue this morning but I got into the settings and adjusted it. This laptop only has a left speaker so had to move the slider all the way left and set the output to 100%. Now I get audio but it's kinda low for being all the way up, but the speaker on this thing is kinda shitty anyways so when I watch youtube or whatever I plug in my headphones, also drowns out the kids some when they're screaming and playing lol.

Edit: I went back to sound settings again and it didn't save the slider all the way to the left next time for some reason did it now again and it stuck and it sounds just like before on Windows. Actually it sounds a little better than when on Windows lol. And in the headphones it sounds amazing.

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Well I'm glad I always able to fix it with your help. That would have been a deal breaker for me because the battery was draining stupid fast, would have basically needed to be plugged in to the charger 24/7 lol.

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You might even be able to squeeze some more out of your battery by using a laptop power management optimization tool.

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Is there one you would recommend?

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you may want to look into "powertop" very useful.
http://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/powertop

"htop" is a must have also.

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laptop-mode-tools comes pre-installed on Mint, alternatives are TLP (http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/advanced-power-management-tool-tlp-sees.html) or powertop.

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Ok guys thanks again. Now I'm off to read over the Mint Users guide lol.

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Ok, same issue now but different computer.

I figured out how to get Mint 17.2 Cinnamon running on our Macbook Pro 5,5 (mid 2009)

I was able to get the wifi working, and the correct and recommended Nvdia driver as well.

It's clean and runs like a champ, this computer is so fast now with the SSD and Mint that it's ridiculous.

I am having two hangups and this would run perfectly:
1) Cannot adjust screen brightness. I tried the fix from before in this thread but it says no such files in directory. Anyone got any ideas?
2) Small issue with the touchpad. I got it to scroll using two fingers, but the right button on the touch pad won't right click like it usually did. Right clicking at this time does the same as clicking the left button or tapping on the touch pad. Just selects things. Any ideas on this one?

If I can fix these two issues we are golden.

Thanks

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My issue trying to do this is when I type this command: ls /sys/class/backlight/ nothing happens ........

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The fix posted above only works with Intel GPUs.

For nvidia ones we need to do something else.

First we need to modify this file /etc/default/grub type in a terminal window sudo gedit /etc/default/grub and locate this line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" or something like that. Change it to something like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"

Execute sudo update-grub and reboot. See if now it works.

If it does not work, do the following.
You need to edit this file /etc/X11/xorg.conf by typing in a terminal sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Find this section or something similar:

Section "Device"
  Identifier     "Device0"
  Driver         "nvidia"
  VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
  BoardName      "GeForce 9400m"
EndSection

And modify it like this:

Section "Device"
  Identifier     "Device0"
  Driver         "nvidia"
  VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
  BoardName      "GeForce 9400m"
  Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

Save the file, reboot and see if it works.

Before attempting both of this fixes, make sure you have the nvidia drivers installed. You can check it by typing nvidia-settings it should open the nvidia setting panel, or by using lspci -v you should get something like this:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df5 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Dell Device 04ca
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
    Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
    I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at f6000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nvidia_current_updates, nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

Emphasis in "Kernel driver in use".

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First fix did not do it.

On the second recommendation when I type sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf the window that pops up is blank.

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In the driver manager I changed the Xorg driver to the newest Nvidia propietary one last night and this fixed the glitches I was having with the display.

What happens at present is the slider for the screen brightness is adjusting the brightness of the backlight on the keyboard.

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LOL. Ok before going forward with the second fix we need to write stuff to the xorg.conf file. This can be done, by typing sudo nvidia-xconfig in a terminal window.

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Did you run sudo update-grub before rebooting after the first fix?

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yes