Let's add support to other Samsung netbooks

[Julian2010]

Test results are as follows:

1- 195.36.03 NVIDIA Driver
Installed without trouble.Seems stable for the time being.
Fn/ UP& DOWN have still no effect on the real screen brightness, although brightness bubble appears and is changed by the Fn/UP& DOWN keys.
Conclusion: no change with this 195.36.03 NVIDIA Driver as regards brightness control.

I would like to mention something I noticed since the beginning (I mean the 9.10 installation with the "official" 185 NVIDIA driver). I do not know if it might have a link with the problem we are trying to solve, but maybe it's worth telling it:
I have 2 ways to control real brightness:
-first one is to use during Grub the Fn/UP or DOWN keys to change brightness, as they work here.
-second is through the NVIDIA Xserver settings window (System-->Preferences-->Display ["Affichage" in french], then going to Xserver Color Correction and using brightness and control cursors, then closing the window with changes.
The strange thing (well, to me..) is that System-->Prefrences-->Display does not open at once the NVIDIA Xserver Settings Window, as I would have expected it to do:
A pop-up window displays (translated): "Your graphic card driver does not seem to manage the extensions needed for using this tool.Do you want instead to use the tool provided by your graphic card pilot supplier?" At the same time a small pink rectangle telling "unknown" appears in the left upper corner of the screen.
But the graphical driver in service is already the NVIDIA one,and knows well that a Seiko 1366 x 768 display is used, so what kind of "switch" needs to be done there?
Nevertheless I answer "Yes" to that silly pop-up window andonly then the NVIDIA Xserver settings window appears, and I can make the brightness /contrast changes.
All this seems to me quite strange, as, if what is mentioned in the pop-up window was really true,(meaning the Xserver settings and/or or graphic driver parameters were not in real use for the actual display) my screen would not be with 1366 x 768 pix.,dispaly as it always is, but the default 600 x 400.
So although the NVIDIA driver is really used, the Xserver settings associated with it are not all used at the same time ? Is this possible?(display resolution is used , but brightness, contrast and so on are not..).
Do you think this is normal and is it the same way with other graphic cards&drivers when you use System/Preferences/Dispaly?I mean ther NOT Nvidia ?Could there be somme link with the unability to control the real brightness through the FN/UP&DOWN keys?

By the way, I made a shortcut using CompizConfig/Commands to open the XServer settings window without going through System/Preferences/Display [ It seems I begin to learn a little bit ] and it works rightaway without opening that silly pop-up window.

2- Fn/F5 not always working at the first strike
I tried the two" vbetool dpms" terminal commands you told me to test.
Same thing happens as with the "samsung-scripts lcd" terminal command: Sometimes it works..and sometimes it does not.The reason is the same: hand is not always given back by the terminal.
So it seems there is an underlying and common reason as the vbetool commands react exactly as the samsung-scripts lcd command do.In my view your lcd script works as it should, but something does not work well elsewhere.
Trying several times the lcd script or the vbetool dpms , I just waited to see if things would sort out by themselves.
In fact, the command (whether it is a samsung-scripts lcd or a vbe dpms ) is indeed always executed!
But:
-either it is executed immediately,
-or it is executed quite later.
In this case "later" is always the same delay: between 29 and 30 seconds ( measured with a chronometer and including at most a one second total error on my side to start and stop the chronometer).
For the FN/F5 command, if the action is not immediate, it also happens after the same 30 s delay (I did not wait that long before, as a second and immediate Fn/F5 strike always give the expected result for backlight if the first strike was not successfull).

I am afraid all this brings more questions than answers, but it is the way my N510 works...I can only report it as it is.

[nick]

Hello, voRia!
I installed "samsung-scripts" package on my Samsung Q310.
All button combinations worked after updating to kernel 2.6.32 and manually setting force-released keys by adding a following line
echo 130,131,132,134,136,137,179,247,249 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/force_release
to rc.local
To make a backlight working I modified and recompiled backlight driver from "samung-backlight" package. But this only worked after adding acpi_backlight=vendor to the grub kernel boot line.
Hope this information will be useful for anybody.
Many thanks for your work and apologize for my english!

[voria]

All button combinations worked after updating to kernel 2.6.32 and manually setting force-released keys by adding a following line
echo 130,131,132,134,136,137,179,247,249 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/force_release
to rc.local

I've just uploaded a new 2.6.31 kernel on the repository which fixes the FN keys release on Samsung Q310 too. It's building right now, it will be available in a few hours.

To make a backlight working I modified and recompiled backlight driver from "samung-backlight" package. But this only worked after adding acpi_backlight=vendor to the grub kernel boot line.
Hope this information will be useful for anybody.

Thanks! I've uploaded a new 'samsung-backlight' package on the repository, with support for Samsung Q310 and X120 (both models have the same video pci device id, so the problem should be fixed for both of them).
Changelogs:

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linux (2.6.31-19.57~ppa3~loms~karmic) karmic; urgency=low
  ...
  * Fix FN keys release on Samsung N120, N130, N140, N310, N510, Q310, X120.
  * Apply 'libata-ata_piix-clear-spurious-IRQ.patch' to fix the
    SATA freezing problem on Samsung N130/N140.

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samsung-backlight (2.6.31-19~ppa5~loms~karmic) karmic; urgency=low

  * Add support for Samsung Q310/X120 (pci device id 2a42).
    Note: 'acpi_backlight=vendor' option is needed in grub kernel boot line
    in order to have backlight control.

[voria]

I updated to the latest packages but I still can't control my screen brightness, I can move the sliders in the brightness applet and I can use Fn+UP/DOWN, I see the updated brigthness level in the on-screen notifications, but no actual change

Please retry with the latest 'samsung-backlight' package. Don't forget to add the needed kernel command line option to grub.

[voria]

The strange thing (well, to me..) is that System-->Prefrences-->Display does not open at once the NVIDIA Xserver Settings Window, as I would have expected it to do
...
Do you think this is normal and is it the same way with other graphic cards&drivers when you use System/Preferences/Dispaly?

Yes, it's the normal behavior. The 'System'->'Preferences'->'Display' opens the default gnome application for controlling connected monitors. This application detects you are using a nvidia card, and ask you if you want to use the dedicated nvidia application instead: clicking 'Yes' opens the NVIDIA Xserver Settings Windows (as you noticed), clicking 'No' opens the default gnome application. So, there is no problems at all here.
To launch directly the NVIDIA Xserver Settings Windows, go to 'System'->'Administration'->'NVIDIA X Server Settings'.

Trying several times the lcd script or the vbetool dpms , I just waited to see if things would sort out by themselves.
In fact, the command (whether it is a samsung-scripts lcd or a vbe dpms ) is indeed always executed!
But:
-either it is executed immediately,
-or it is executed quite later.
In this case "later" is always the same delay: between 29 and 30 seconds ( measured with a chronometer and including at most a one second total error on my side to start and stop the chronometer).
For the FN/F5 command, if the action is not immediate, it also happens after the same 30 s delay (I did not wait that long before, as a second and immediate Fn/F5 strike always give the expected result for backlight if the first strike was not successfull).

So, the problem is with vbetool and nvidia drivers. Well, I can't do anything to fix it.

Concerning the backlight control, do you have anything in /sys/class/backlight/?
Please check with this command:

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ls /sys/class/backlight/

[Julian2010]

Answer to "ls /sys/class/backlight" is
acpi_video0

[voria]

Check also /proc/acpi/video/.
If the path does not exist, then load the video module and retry:

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sudo modprobe video

[Julian2010]

Answer to "ls /proc/acpi/video" is:
IGPU

[voria]

Ok, then you should be able to get the current brightness level with this command:

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cat /proc/acpi/video/IGPU/LCD0/brightness

Try to modify the brightness by using this command (replace 50 with the brightness value you want to set):

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echo 50 | sudo tee -a /proc/acpi/video/IGPU/LCD0/brightness

[Julian2010]

First command lists what I understand to be the brightness possible levels, from 20 to 100 (by steps of 10 only) , and the current level reads : 80
Second command allows to change the current level
I changed it to 20 in the command: current:20 is shown in terminal.The value has indeed been changed in the file.

But no change at all for the real brightness of the screen: it seems the brightness value set in the file /proc/acpi/video/IGPU/LCD0/brightnes is not read or used.

[voria]

What I really don't understand is the fact that in this thread on archlinux forum, they succeded to enable the backlight control by looking at how it's done on ubuntu 9.10, where it's reported the backlight control works out-of-the-box.
I'm out of ideas now.

[Julian2010]

As an addition to the previous answer, I checked something just to see what happens..or not.

When the Fn/UP &DOWN keys are used, the brightness value is indeed altered accordingly in the /proc/acpi/video/IGPU/LCD0/brightness file:
20 when DOWN to the minimum and 100 when UP to the maximum.
So the Fn /UP&DOWN keys have an effect on the brightness value, but for the time being, it's only in that file.

[voria]

Is the 'video' kernel module automatically loaded at boot time, or you had to load it manually with the modprobe command I suggested above?
Also, please try to suspend the machine then resume it, and check if backlight control starts to work.

[Julian2010]

Sorry, I do not even understand your question, as I do not even know what a video kernel is....
And I do not know what is loaded or not at boot time, as I did not do anything to choose what happens (or not) at boot time: as long as the machine starts having chosen your 2.6.31-19 kernel, it's OK for me...

I did my best to follow your instructions about the 2.6.31-19 kernel install., NVIDIA drivers, scripts and so on...
I was never asked when doing this to choose what should be or should not be loadad at boot time, so...
Did I miss something?

[voria]

I mean the 'video' driver.

Follow these steps:
- Reboot your pc.
- Open a terminal, use this command:

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lsmod | awk '{print $1}'

and check if the 'video' driver is in the list. If so, then the driver is automatically loaded at boot.
- If it's not, use this command to load it:

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sudo modprobe video

- Suspend the machine, then resume it, and check if backlight control starts to work.