Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Rao Pathangi]

First of all, thanks to everyone who contributed to the Puppy Linux project via core development or through support on forums. The operating system is such a joy to work with and I am addicted to it.

I recently acquired a Dell Mini 1010 and have installed many flavors of puppy on it. I have tried Slacko Puppy 5.3, Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 and Fluppy 013. I uninstalled Slacko Puppy 5.3 because it seemed to consume more CPU than the other two. I ruled out Fluppy 013 because it would not allow me to get a resolution higher than 800x600. Other than that Fluppy was good enough for the Netbook. My favorite is the Lucid Puppy 5.2.8. It is beautiful and it is surprisingly nimble without chewing up a lot of CPU.

My biggest concern right now is to be able to reduce the brightness on the netbook; it is bright enough to strain the eyes. The brightness function key combinations do not work on any of the puppy flavors and the netbook currently runs on full power/brightness all the time. Fluppy alone offers the ability to switch amongst three power modes, the least power mode offers the ability to dim the brightness but as I mentioned, I had to rule out Fluppy because I cannot get a higher resolution.

I googled a bit and found very detailed instructions by tempestuous on how to increase the resolution on Fluppy. I diligently followed the instructions but the changes did not yield the proper resolution. I also used the two pets mentioned in the thread.

I tried looking into the gamma calibration technique but it did not work either.

Please suggest ideas on how to get the brightness under control and conserve power. It is one of the reasons I chose the netbook to begin with. I absolutely want to have puppy (preferably Lucid 5.2.8) on it.

Thanks for reading.
Rao Pathangi

[Rao Pathangi]

I have an update on the brightness issue. The Slacko Puppy 5.3.3 seems to solve the problem. I am now able to control the brightness on my Dell Mini using the on-board key combinations. I would have liked the feature in Lucid but I am not going to complain.

Once again, thanks to all the volunteers who have contributed.

[ozsouth]

It is possible to manipulate brightness with setpci. I use this on a Samsung netbook with luci-529.
F4.B in code below is specific to Samsung, but variable should be able to be tweaked for other brands.
'setpci' goes in /sbin ; 'setbaklt' goes in /usr/bin (MUST edit variable first).

The setbaklt script is as thus:

#!/bin/sh
lspci > /tmp/pciinf
grep "VGA" /tmp/pciinf > /tmp/pcicut
V="`cut -c 1-7 "/tmp/pcicut"`"
setpci -s $V F4.B=33


Note: F4.B is specific to Samsung.
33 is a hex brightness level.

USE WITH CAUTION - manipulates hardware directly.

[ozsouth]

To quickly lower brightness from command line (rough):

xgamma -gamma .7

(that's POINT 7)

[jamesbond]

Yes, overbright display is annoying.

Explore /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0.
If that doesn't exist, you're probably using and older kernel, look around /proc/acpi/video instead. Find a file called "brightness".

[micahdmacdonald]

Ok I have the same problem, and I've found /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness, but I have no idea what to do with it. (Yes I am completely new to Linux and Puppy, so I'll need baby language from you command prompt ninjas.

BTW:
I have a Samsung nf110 netbook I'm resurrecting that's running the latest Slacko and I want to turn the brightness UP.

Thanks in advance!

[ozsouth]

Open a terminal (console) & type:

echo 5 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

then press Enter. Should give you about 71% brightness.