Brightness Slider, FN Keys, do not change brightness

[jackchampagne]

Hi,
I just installed Linux Mint 20.2 xfce and have run into some issues controlling my laptop brightness. When I move the slider, the display brightness does not change. When I use the function keys the display brightness also does not change (and the minidisplay/icon for changing brightness does not show up).

I am using a Dell XPS 15 9570. I have tried a few things so far including viewtopic.php?f=49&t=365348&p=2122249&h ... g#p2122249 and creating the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with a Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight" and modifying 10-nvidia.conf in the same folder to no avail. I am able to change the brightness in BIOS (Factory BIOS has ability to change brightness) and when I boot to a live USB of the same distro currently. I have been using this current installation for only a few days and everything (slider + Fn keys) was working until today.

The output of inxi -Fxxxrz is below.

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-94-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 
           info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: XPS 15 9570 v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 
           serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 0D0T05 v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.20.0 date: 06/07/2021 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 15.6 Wh condition: 53.6/97.0 Wh (55%) volts: 11.9/11.4 model: SMP DELL GPM0365 
           type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Charging 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake rev: A 
           L2 cache: 9216 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 52799 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 
           7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:3e9b 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1c8c 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nvidia 
           resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:a348 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-94-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Bigfoot Networks 
           driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 3b:00.0 chip ID: 168c:003e 
           IF: wlp59s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 1-4:2 chip ID: 0cf3:e301 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 953.87 GiB used: 66.89 GiB (7.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Toshiba model: KXG60ZNV1T02 NVMe 1024GB size: 953.87 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
           lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: 10604105 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 937.40 GiB used: 33.44 GiB (3.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 43.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2482 fan-2: 2507 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-cli.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg] https://cli.github.com/packages stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/linrunner-tlp-focal.list 
           1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/linrunner/tlp/ubuntu focal main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com uma main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list 
           1: deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf] http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code stable main
Info:      Processes: 268 Uptime: 12m Memory: 15.28 GiB used: 1.90 GiB (12.4%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 
           Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.0.38

[HAWR]

Hello jackchampagne,

maybe it's helpful, when you update the kernel to the recent 5.13 via the update manager>view>linux kernels.

You posted a link to a thread, I was just involved in finding the solution. What exactly have you tried so far?

[jackchampagne]

Hi! Thanks for your reply. I updated my kernel to 5.13 and now the slider works! The function keys do not work.

I added
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"

to the grubfile already (and tried video instead of vendor) and it did not change anything. I tried changing it again (video/vendor) after the kernel upgrade but that did not change the fn keys not working either.

Thanks

[HAWR]

Hello jackchampagne,

have you tried "vendor/video" also with the nvidia card? In your inxi output above the Intel graphic is active.

[jackchampagne]

Just tried switching my active display driver and my computer now boots to a black screen (small cursor/underscore in the top left) and nothing else.

Not sure what to do next, shall I prep a live USB boot device?

[jackchampagne]

Hi! I am ending my journey down this unfortunate rabbit hole . I have definitely by now messed up something within X11 or display drivers or something. For future reference, I am migrating to Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon as (right now) it is working (fn keys, slider, yay!)

Thank you again for your help.

[HAWR]

It's good that LM 20.3 has solved the problem Please edit your first post and add [SOLVED] in front of the headline.