Ubuntu – Brightness controls doesn’t work on a MacBook Pro 5.5 (ubuntu 12.04 LTS)

12.04brightnessmacbook

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Brightness controls doesn't work on a MacBook Pro 5.5

I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on my MacBook pro 5.5 (mid 2009). I have a problem with the brightness control. The thing is, when I try to reduce the brightness of my display which would help my battery and also not burn a hole through my eyes, is doesnt work.

I tried to use the system preference but nothing. The brightness control brightness slider doesn't even work. The only time the screen with change brightness is when ubuntu wants to go to sleep.

I went to the Ubuntu wiki or whatever it is and went through the MacBook Pro compatibility stuff to no avail.

I'm not sure if this has been asked allot or not, but I'm unable to find a solution. I am also new to ubuntu/linux but want to make the change and learn all I can.

P.s.- is there anything out there that will make the touch-pad work really well, I've already played with the mouse/track-pad settings that comes with Ubuntu? It's working but there seems to be some sluggishness and a few glitches here and there.

Thank you in advance =)

Best Answer

First, see this for instructions on changing brightness through the command line. If that doesn't work, it is likely a problem with your graphics driver and/or kernel version.

Note that by switching graphics driver, you can solve one problem but cause another. The default for nvidia has no power management, so people may switch to the proprietary driver if battery life on a laptop is important to them, but nvidia's drivers (being closed source) may not play nice with Ubuntu (leading to display issues like tearing in video).

If you want the nvidia driver, type in the terminal sudo apt-get install nvidia-current. After installing the driver, you'll need to enable brightness controls in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

In /etc/X11/xorg.conf you should put:

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

"Identifier" is not so important unless you have other stuff referring to this device in your conf file. You can replace with more appropriate name if it's not an Nvidia GeForce type card. Everything else must be as written; "NoLogo" is to avoid the annoying Nvidia splash screen.

To edit the file using a GUI text editor, type gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the terminal. Save changes and reboot... if all went well, you will now be using the new driver and brightness controls will work! If it doesn't work, you can check if you're using the new driver by typing in the terminal lspci -v | grep -i -A 15 vga. You should get something like:

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 08a3 (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
[some lines omitted....]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb

Kernel drive in use should be nvidia, not nouveau.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Brightness controls doesn’t work on a MacBook Pro 5.5

No mention of what Ubuntu you are using so this is a SWAG.

Recommend /etc/pommed.conf:

#
# Configuration file for pommed
#

# General configuration
general {
    # fnmode: functions keys first (no need to use fn) or last
    # Value is either 1 or 2, effect is hardware-dependent
    fnmode = 2
}

# sysfs backlight control
# nVidia machines, will fall back to nv8600gmt if not supported by the kernel
lcd_sysfs {
    # The sysfs backlight control is a generic interface provided
    # by the Linux kernel for backlight control on most graphic cards.
    # The brightness range can differ depending on the hardware.

    # initial backlight level [12] (0 - 15, -1 to disable)
    init = -1
    # step value (1 - 2)
    step = 1
    # backlight level when on battery [6] (1 - 15, 0 to disable)
    on_batt = 6
}

# ATI X1600 backlight control (MacBook Pro v1 & v2)
lcd_x1600 {
    # initial backlight level [200] (0 - 255, -1 to disable)
    init = -1
    # step value (1 - 127)
    step = 10
    # backlight level when on battery [80] (1 - 255, 0 to disable)
    on_batt = 80
}

# Intel 945GM, 965GM backlight control (MacBook v1-v4, MacBook Air v1)
lcd_gma950 {
    # initial backlight level [0x6f] (0x1f - 0x94 usually, -1 to disable)
    init = -1
    # step value (0x01 - 0x20)
    step = 0x0f
    # backlight level when on battery [0x40] (0x1f - 0x94 usually, 0 to disable)
    on_batt = 0x40
}

# nVidia GeForce 8600M GT/9400M/9600M GT backlight control
# (MacBook Pro v3-v5, MacBook v5, MacBook v2)
lcd_nv8600mgt {
    # initial backlight level [12] (0 - 15, -1 to disable)
    init = -1
    # step value (1 - 2)
    step = 1
    # backlight level when on battery [6] (1 - 15, 0 to disable)
    on_batt = 6
}

# Audio support
audio {
    # Use amixer or alsamixer/alsamixergui to determine the sound card
    # and the mixer elements to use here.

    # sound card to use
    card = "default"
    # initial volume [80] (0 - 100%, -1 to disable)
    init = -1
    # step value (1 - 50%)
    step = 10
    # beep on volume change
    beep = yes
    # mixer element for volume adjustment
    volume = "PCM"
    # mixer element for muting the speakers
    speakers = "Front"
    # mixer element for muting the headphones
    headphones = "Headphone"
}

# Keyboard backlight control
kbd {
    # default value for automatic backlight (0 - 255)
    default = 100
    # step value (1 - 127)
    step = 10
    # ambient light thresholds for automatic backlight (0 - 255)
    on_threshold = 20
    off_threshold = 40
    # enable/disable automatic backlight
    auto = no
    # idle timer - switches off keyboard backlight automatically (timeout in seconds, -1 to disable)
    idle_timer = -1
    # idle tickms - timer tick rate in milliseconds
    idle_tickms = 200
}

# CD/DVD drive ejection
eject {
    # enable/disable eject key
    enabled = yes
    # CD/DVD device
    device = "/dev/dvd"
}

# Beeper
beep {
    # enable/disable beeper
    enabled = no
    # WAV file to use (from pommed: goutte.wav or click.wav in /usr/share/pommed)
    beepfile = "/usr/share/pommed/goutte.wav"
}

# Apple Remote - deprecated
# Note: the appleir driver is required for this to work; this driver has been
# obsoleted with Linux 2.6.22, so unless you are running a kernel < 2.6.22 or
# use the appleir driver on a newer kernel, this won't work.
# You should use LIRC instead.
appleir {
    # enable/disable the appleir support
    enabled = no
}

source

Ubuntu – Macbook Pro 5.5 brightness settings work, are remembered, but are not used on startup

have you tried to set up manually in xrandr? Just try this one: to set brightness as 0.8 type this command in ~/.xprofile (make this file if it is not available yet)

xrandr --output LVDS1 --brightness 0.8

The code above is to set the main monitor (LVDS1) brightness to be 0.8. Just change it depend on your needs. Then, restart your mac and let see..

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Brightness controls doesn’t work on a MacBook Pro 5.5

Ubuntu – Macbook Pro 5.5 brightness settings work, are remembered, but are not used on startup

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