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My Problem: Since Ubuntu 10.04 I can no longer adjust the background brightness of the built in LCD-Panel. The Laptop (Samsung Aura R700 Dillen - Nvidia 8600M GT GPU) is always on a very low brightness-level. Since Ubuntu 11.04 the below detailed solution doesn't work any more.

In Ubuntu 10.04 the solution to the backlight problem was rather "simple":

  1. Open nvidia-settings and create/save and merge a xorg.conf file.
  2. Open a Terminal and: sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  3. Once opened, in the "Device" section, add this line: Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
  4. Save and exit. Reboot the machine.
  5. Done.

I want to do the same thing in Ubuntu 11.10, because this takes care of the brightness-adjust problem.**

How can I safely create and edit xorg.conf in Ubuntu 11.10? I can't find it and a lot of ppl suggest different methods how to create it again. Some are known to cause the computer to not boot correctly.

  • Adding the Voria-Tools PPA is not an option. I don't like installing untrusted PPA's. Also, I tried this before and it never worked.
  • I have tried the steps mentioned in the link Oli posted. A few of those steps made Ubuntu hang during bootup (editing Grub to add the ACPI-line for example; it always typed in something different - something was buggy there).
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Oranges10e
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    About half the questions on this site are related to Samsung backlight issues. Have you tried any of the fixed suggested in any of them? Here's [one that worked for me](http://askubuntu.com/questions/28017/getting-function-keys-working-on-samsung-rv510-notebook) (the udev method). Let me know and if it does and I'll close this as a dupe. – Oli Dec 12 '11 at 21:29
  • Hi Oli, yes, I have tried the steps mentioned in the link you posted. A few of those steps made Ubuntu hang during bootup (editing Grub to add the ACPI-line for example; it always typed in something different - something was buggy there). I have also tried the Voria-Tools - without success. I tried a lot of different things, but none of them worked and caused other problems. A few days ago, I installed Ubuntu again and started fresh. So, in order to keep things clean this time, I'd like to stick to what I know works best (the steps mentioned in my Post, but for 11.10). Thanks! – Oranges10e Dec 12 '11 at 21:44

1 Answers1

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I finally fixed it! And even - without - the need of any Voria-Tools PPA or without the need to manually edit anything else, besides what I already posted. I have tried this on three Samsung Laptops - with success. All of them had the same issue (with brightness controls).

SOLUTION (for Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10):

  1. Open nvidia-settings (you can find it via Unity-Dash)
  2. Go to "X Server Display Configuration"
  3. Click on "Save to X Configuration File"
  4. It will display an error: Failed to parse existing X config file ‘/etc/X11/xorg.conf’!
  5. Ignore the error. A new window pops up and asks you to save the X Configuration File.
  6. Leave everything as it is (/etc/X11/xorg.conf - do not merge, if you haven't done this before) and click on save. This will generate a new file for you.
  7. Open this new file with: gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  8. Once the file is opened, do what I mentioned in my previous Post: Add this line to the Device section of the file: 

    Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"

from this                        TO   this     

Section "Device"                  | Section "Device"
 Identifier "Device0"             |   Identifier  "Device0"
 Driver     "nvidia"              |   Driver      "nvidia"
 VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"  |   VendorName  "NVIDIA Corporation"
                                  |   Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection                        | EndSection
  1. Click on save and close the window.
  2. Reboot the machine. Brightness-controls should now be working and you should be able to use your FN-Keys to adjust brightness.
bh_earth0
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Oranges10e
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