I installed Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 on a Samsung N148. Then I installed the required updates from the voria repository. Most things worked except the brightness control with the Fn+up/down arrow combination. Since it seems that the current Maverick kernel will not work for brightness control, I used this solution instead from the Ubuntu forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1397371 A hearty thanks to "wcale" for the solution

1. type "lscpi" in the terminal:
The output will be something like:
........
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation N10 Family DMI Bridge
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller
.......
We need the device id from the second line which is the VGA controller, i.e. "00:02.0"
Then type:
"sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b=3f"
this will change the brightness of the screen. To change the brightness higher or lower, change the value of "b=3f" (which is hexadecimal). You can try 1f, 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f, and so on or any hexadecimal value between 00 and ff to see which is comfortable to the eye. Using a value of "ff" made the screen extremely bright and I thought my eyes would pop out

so beware!
