Re: Broken key

[Ian Greenhoe <ihgreenman@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 2005-11-20 at 13:06 +0545, Paras pradhan wrote:
> hi:
> 
> i am running debian sarge in my Fujitsu s series notebook. Few days
> back i found the key F7 is not working which is used  in increasing
> the brightness of my screen. so my question is .. is there any sotware
> in linux/debian that can increase my brightness by using it.
> 
> Thanks
> Paras.
> 
> 
> 

Hrm, I have a T series, and my Fn-F6 & Fn-F7 have *never* worked under
Linux.  (I could make them work, but haven't had the time and/or desire.
They work fine under the game OS, tho.)

In order to change the brightness via software, you need to be running
kernel version 2.4 with acpi, or kernel version 2.6 with acpi and
legacy /proc enabled.  (All of the kernels that come with Debian
stable/testing/unstable meet this requirement, AFAIK)

Next, make sure the acpi video driver is loaded (under 2.6, "modprobe
video" -- dunno what it is under 2.4, but it is probably the same).

Now, you can cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to see what levels
you have, and what level it is set at (0 == default level), and echo the
brightness level number that you want into the file to change it.

For example, I have my screen set to the minimum brightness, and I want
to set it to the maximum brightness:

anubis:/# cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness 
levels:  8 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
current: 1

anubis:/# echo 8 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness 

anubis:/# cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness 
levels:  8 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
current: 8


HTH,
Ian