Can't control backlight; strange segfault

Question

I'm using Arch Linux on my Packard Bell EasyNote TX86 (Intel HD Graphics, Core i5) and I can't control the backlight (it's always on max). xbacklight and writing to /sys/class/backlight does nothing. I tried

xrandr --output LVDS --set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native

but it segfaults X with

Backtrace:
[   308.398] 0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x3b) [0x80e685b]
[   308.398] 1: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x64895) [0x80ac895]
[   308.398] 2: (vdso) (__kernel_rt_sigreturn+0x0) [0xb770140c]
[   308.398] 3: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0xbe860) [0x8106860]
[   308.398] 4: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x23e57) [0x806be57]
[   308.398] 5: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x1a135) [0x8062135]
[   308.398] 6: /lib/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xe6) [0xb7442c76]
[   308.398] 7: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x19d11) [0x8061d11]
[   308.398] Segmentation fault at address 0x48
[   308.398] 
Fatal server error:
[   308.398] Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting

Ubuntu can't control it either, but Windows can. Any ideas? I'd love to use Linux full time but it eats my battery.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 16 '12 at 17:02

1

This is no longer a problem, the kernel has supported it for a while.

answered Aug 16 '12 at 17:02

chpatrick

189

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '12 at 11:11

I presume (hope) you're talking about keyboard backlight... in which case I used Ktoso's bash script script binded to a keyboard shortcut to get this working.

It worked for me in Arch but not in Ubuntu, but I no longer use Ubuntu so it's all good.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

0

While this is less of a fix and more of a patch.. I personally used the 1st answer by Syzygy here. Bind all 3 of the scripts to certain key combos for easy adjustment.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

Community

1

answered Jul 22 '12 at 01:20

Typherix

326
2
4

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 18:50

I've had the same issue on my laptop with the past 2-3 versions of Ubuntu, but I've discovered a pretty quick fix. I have no idea if this'll work on Arch, but maybe it's worth a try?

Try editing /etc/default/grub and add following entry to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT:

acpi_backlight=vendor

So the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" would now look something like GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"

(You could also pass this to Grub during boot if you just want to try it once.)

Can't control backlight; strange segfault

4 Answers4