Brightness control? (Toshiba netbook)

[ander111]

Well, it's been nearly 2 months since I started this thread and I still can't control my Toshiba NB255 netbook's display brightness, or get headphone audio to work—with [i]any[/i] Linux distro, not just LM.

Toshiba has been selling their new netbooks for half a year now. Can it possibly be true that [i]no[/i] version of Linux supports them yet?

How about the "toshutils" idea (above)? Could someone follow through and tell me how to try those? I haven't been able to find the slightest clue on how to run those.

I've gone back to Windows 7, though I've kept LM on there so I can show it to friends who might be interested in using it on their desktop machines.

Feel free to chime in, anyone. Thanks, ander

[saihenjin]

Same problem on my T130 with Linux Mint 9, 10 and Ubuntu 10.10 desktop (32 and 64 bit).

The only way I've found so far to dim the brightness is to open a terminal and type

Code: Select all

sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=90

The last number can be anything between 0 and FF (hex: 0 ... 99 ... FF). If you type exactly the above line, you should reduce the brightness from the max value FF to 90.

Not very practical , but at least it does something...

I'm not the fellow who made the thread but this right here has been the only action to set the backlight on my laptop so far! Thanks. Is there any way I can make keyboard shortcuts for various values on that command?

[ander111]

I'm glad it's helped someone.

Toshiba obviously went to a lot of trouble to avoid the normal system calls. Did they do this at Microsoft's suggestion, to discourage people from using Linux on these netbooks? If I were a Linux developer, I'd be enraged at that idea and would quickly find a hack.

[ander111]

[1 mo. later] Nobody?

[ibm450]

dude, dont hold your breath, there are some / alot of things that will never work on linux. ive been using LM for almost 1yr and my brightness FN keys NEVER NEVER worked or found a working solution for it.

my 2 cent piece sorry,

[patnaik7]

Same problem on my T130 with Linux Mint 9, 10 and Ubuntu 10.10 desktop (32 and 64 bit).

The only way I've found so far to dim the brightness is to open a terminal and type

Code: Select all

sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=90

The last number can be anything between 0 and FF (hex: 0 ... 99 ... FF). If you type exactly the above line, you should reduce the brightness from the max value FF to 90.

Not very practical , but at least it does something...

I'm not the fellow who made the thread but this right here has been the only action to set the backlight on my laptop so far! Thanks. Is there any way I can make keyboard shortcuts for various values on that command?

That one terminal line of yours saved my eyes...seriously....thanks a ton for that. Someone please help in creation of a hack thats more intuitive for newbies.

[patnaik7]

Same problem on my T130 with Linux Mint 9, 10 and Ubuntu 10.10 desktop (32 and 64 bit).

The only way I've found so far to dim the brightness is to open a terminal and type

Code: Select all

sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=90

The last number can be anything between 0 and FF (hex: 0 ... 99 ... FF). If you type exactly the above line, you should reduce the brightness from the max value FF to 90.

Not very practical , but at least it does something...

I'm not the fellow who made the thread but this right here has been the only action to set the backlight on my laptop so far! Thanks. Is there any way I can make keyboard shortcuts for various values on that command?

That one terminal line of yours saved my eyes...seriously....thanks a ton for that. Someone please help in creation of a hack thats more intuitive for newbies.

To make life more easier, you can copy paste that line into a text editor like gedit and save the plain text file with a name .e.g. brightness

Open terminal in that directory and run chmod that enables you to execute the script

Then in terminal you can type ./<<scriptname>> in this case ./brightness to run it. Remember to set a brightness value in the line code, 30 works for me.

So, every time you login you can just open terminal and run the script using ./

A tutorial on creating the script can be found at: http://www.linfo.org/create_shell_1.html

You can also have that script run automatically on startup.

[m4daredsun]

saihenjin, patnaik7 & everybody else with the same problem:

I have found a rather practical solution and I posted a HOWTO here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=63446

It's a bit of typing in terminal but the final result is great (for me at least!)

[beefstu]

I wrote a tutorial with a few suggestions of things that might help http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=45271

People have mixed results!

[bastou]

Hello guys,

I have Toshiba NB305 Netbook.
I also tried Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.04, Mint 10 (gnome), Mepis 8.5 (based on Debian) With no success for brigtness control.

I am currently using Mint 9 Xfce. The brightness control applet works fine !!
I am very satisfied with this version.

[m4daredsun]

I am currently using Mint 9 Xfce. The brightness control applet works fine !!
I am very satisfied with this version.

Shall give it a try!

[ander111]

Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately, setpci has no effect on my NB255.

I still much prefer Linux Mint over Window$. It's noticeably faster, less cluttered, and more configurable.

But just this afternoon, I'd decided to boot LM on my netbook while I was out. The power meter said I had "over 1 hour" of battery time left. Then the system hibernated 20 minutes later.

It must be more than just screen brightness. LM doesn't seem to have a clue about power management in general on this hardware. Too bad. I can get nearly 8 hours per charge with Mr. Gates' OS.

Of course it's not Linux's fault that Toshiba decided to cloak their p/m functions. But there must be a bunch of people out there who'd like to run Linux on Toshiba netbooks... Where are all these famous Linux hackers, to whom closed, proprietary interfaces are like a red flag to a bull? :?|

[MintRocksOn]

I have a Toshiba NB305 Net book. I to had trouble with the Brightness and Audio. I went into the Package Manager and installed all the upgrades, not updates. There was 17 of them that i installed and then rebooted. The FN buttons with the Brightness and Audio now work. I hope this will work for you.

[ander111]

I have a Toshiba NB305 Net book. I to had trouble with the Brightness and Audio. I went into the Package Manager and installed all the upgrades, not updates...The FN buttons with the Brightness and Audio now work.

That's great—I'm glad it worked for you. Obviously the NB305 is a bit, ahem, more advanced...

As it turned out, tonight I tried the newly-released LM 11, and brightness control works! So they've fixed that, finally. Unfortunately, now I can't get WiFi to work. It worked fine in LM 9... So, more research, but I won't give up!

[ander111]

Okay—everything works just fine now in LM 11! I have no idea why wireless didn't work the first few times I tried, but it's worked ever since.

Sorry for all the whinging. Long live Linux Mint.