This bug is difficult to reproduce reliably. I'm running Debian lenny/sid using xserver-xorg 1:7.2-5 with driver xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.1.0-2, and the X screen sometimes gets into a state where when the backlight is turned off (because I am using a USB keyboard and so no keyboard activity is registered), it does not come back on again at a keystroke. BUT it is possible to restore the backlight by using Ctl-Alt-F1 to switch the console (at which point the backlight is turned on) and then 'chvt 7' to get back to the X screen, at which point the backlight stays on, for a while at least. This state is extremely difficult to reproduce reliably, but once the system enters this state, it usually stays in it for some time---I may lose the backlight three or four times and have to switch consoles each time to get it back. Then the system will transition back to a more normal state in which when the backlight drops out I can restore it just by pressing the shift key. In case it's useful, the server is started by running startx (not as root) from the command line, not by a daemon like xdm or gdm. In case it's helpful, the URL points to /var/log/Xorg.0.log. I realize this bug is nearly impossible to reproduce and therefore is unlikely to be fixed, but if anybody has ideas, I would love someone to have a look.
Yeah, there are several potential problems with backlight control on Thinkpads. Hopefully we can get it fixed for you.
Norman, can you try the latest Intel driver from git? I just checked in some big backlight changes, including support for Thinkpads, so hopefully your problem is fixed now. Thanks, Jesse
(In reply to comment #2) > Norman, can you try the latest Intel driver from git? I just checked in some > big backlight changes, including support for Thinkpads, so hopefully your > problem is fixed now. I'm compiling the new kernel now, but it appears that make-kpkg has issues with building kernels from git repositories, and it gets itself into an inconsistent state. Unfortunately my pre-Debian kernel installation skills have atrophied completely :-( I may have to report a bug against Debian kernel-package before I can proceed.
To test these fixes you should only have to rebuild the intel X driver, not the kernel. Hopefully that'll make your life a little easier. :)
There's an updated backlight patch in 13306, can you try that? Thanks, Jesse
Given the behavior I'm pretty sure this isn't an Intel X driver bug (and if it was it should be fixed with the latest changes we've made to the backlight code). It sounds like it might actually be a bug in the kernel's thinkpad driver or in a desktop utility that controls your display power saving. Maybe they're missing events somehow? So since the actual X server backlight control appears to work I'm going to close this out... If you find some way of reproducing it reliably and it definitely looks like an X bug, please open a new one and we'll track it from there. Thanks, Jesse
Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.