Adjusting laptop display brightness doesn't work in Linux Mint 14

I recently installed Linux Mint 14 on my Samsung R580 laptop. The Fn-keys worked out of the box, I can switch screens, adjust volume and so on.

When I try to adjust the brightness (Fn + ↑/↓), the slider shows up and moves to the left and right, but screen brightness does not change at all, it always stays at 100%.

I tried to change the brightness in the system settings and it also doesn't do anything.

When I'm inactive for 5-10 minutes, the energy saving profile kicks in and the screen is dimmed. So the dimming does work, but not when I change it manually.

I found some threads stating that you should change the acpi_background setting to "vendor" in Grub config, but that didn't change anything for me.

What else can I try?

moeTi

Posted 2013-01-02T13:26:49.767

Reputation: 153

Answers

From Samsung R580, Ubuntu 10.04 and Brightness control, not written for Mint but may still work :

Edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and add the RegistryDwords line (only that line) to the Device section:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Default Device"
  Driver "nvidia"
  Option "NoLogo" "True"
  Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

harrymc

Posted 2013-01-02T13:26:49.767

Reputation: 306 093

thank you so much, my eyes love you ;-) accepted and bounty awarded. only the last line is relevant, the rest of my device section looked a bit different. and a restart was required. but now everything is more than fine – moeTi – 2013-01-12T08:20:38.580

Edit this line in /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi="

Then:

update-grub
reboot

user218661

Posted 2013-01-02T13:26:49.767

Reputation: 61

1This is the only solution that solved my problem with my Dell 15R SE 7520 with Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon 64-bit – gilbertohasnofb – 2014-08-06T22:15:03.617

For linux mint version 8 +

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Find the line which says GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
enter acpi_backlight=vendor between the quotes ("")
sudo update-grub
reboot your laptop / pc

Source:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=45271

DS_ED

Posted 2013-01-02T13:26:49.767

Reputation: 11

1Welcome to superuser. Please try to add essential facts from the site to your answer. Otherwise, if the link goes down, your post will be totally useless. – TFM – 2013-01-03T03:30:54.317

thank you, but I already tried that. the FN keys are working, I see the slider moving when I'm using FN+up/down. But the screen brightness does not change at all – moeTi – 2013-01-03T11:49:58.937