Precise Puppy 5.5 adjust display brightness on cpq 615dx

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Bligh · #1 Post by **Bligh** » Tue 21 May 2013, 04:11

I was running precise Puppy on a cpq 615dx laptop when the screen became dim. It came with win 7. I was using a hdd with Pclinux installed on the boot partition and various Puppy save files on the data partition. After a search, I reinstalled the win7 hdd , went to control panel then power control. There was a slider at the bottom of the screen which adjusted the brightness properly. When I booted in linux the brightness stayed the same. Where is this this info stored? Can this be adjusted in linux?
Cheers

Bligh · #2 Post by **Bligh** » Fri 31 May 2013, 04:38

Can't anybody shed some light on this?
Cheers

SFR · #3 Post by **SFR** » Fri 31 May 2013, 08:41

This works for me on Toshiba and Acer laptops:

Check if /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/ exists.
If so, type:

Code: Select all

cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness

to get the max allowed brightness, and:

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

where 'X' is a value in range from 0 to 'max_brightness'.

Eventually you can try 'Setup -> Xorg Video Wizard' -> Monitor gamma calibration'.

Greetings!

Bligh · #4 Post by **Bligh** » Fri 31 May 2013, 20:29

Thanks for your reply. I posted a reply and it showed as posted but when I logged out and back in it was not there. I have a hdd in that laptop with Vector 7 64 bit on the boot partition and numerous Puppy save files on the data partition. There is nothing in that directory in Vector. Puppy 5.25 has numerous files. I will try that. right now it is working properly.
Cheers

Bligh · #5 Post by **Bligh** » Tue 09 Jul 2013, 02:48

The display became dim again, I booted win7 and adjusted it up again. I t appears to be ok in linux also.
Cheers

Kafshiel · #6 Post by **Kafshiel** » Thu 18 Jul 2013, 22:25

There's no way to adjust the display brightness and the previous answers do not adress this issue properly. In some displays the above method of editing the settings won't work in the proper way because adjusting the gamma won't make the display brighter. On dual Windows-Puppy systems even after adjusting brightness in Windows these settings will be ignored by Puppy but if you have Ubuntu (any flavor) installed on your hard drive then the Ubuntu settings will always be maintained from each Puppy session to the next. I think this should work with other Linux distros too (but with any Windows version up to 7 it won't work). There's a Puppy-based distro "Macpup" that adresses this issue by having a display brightness adjuster from the menu or you can place it as a widget on the desktop. Maybe this could be included in future Puppy releases so ask for that in this Forum please (i did).

Bligh · #7 Post by **Bligh** » Fri 19 Jul 2013, 02:15

This laptop also has a wifi indicator which is blue in win7 and red in linux. The synaptics touchpad also has a switch next to the pad, The switch only works in win7. Puppy does give me a way to turn off the touchpad. I don't use wifi and always use a mouse. The bios does not give a way to control any of these. This appears to be another M$ control issue.
Cheers

Bligh · #8 Post by **Bligh** » Wed 07 Aug 2013, 01:30

Finally found it, fn+f7 and fn+f8 With black keyboards these can be hard to see.
Cheers

Cadejo · #9 Post by **Cadejo** » Wed 07 Aug 2013, 05:54

I just posted a "How To" on how to make a slider in JWM,
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 415#717415

peartreesong · #10 Post by **peartreesong** » Mon 25 Nov 2013, 19:07

Computer: Sony Vaio VGN-N130G
Running: Puppy Precise 5.6.1 (currently from disc)
(Linux 3.2.44 i686)

I started using Puppy a couple weeks ago (like it!), but after about a week it started to become reaaaaallllyyyy slow.... Not sure why, my guess is uncleared internet cookies or something (even though it's set to clear them every time). It was also refusing to connect wlan0 so I always had to be plugged in to get online.

I had previously deleted a lot of icons from my desktop (to keep it cleaner) but found it so frustrating trying to find them in folders (searching online is no help), I just decided to delete my personal settings and start over (no big deal, since I just backed everything up two weeks ago. Plus, now the computer is super fast again).

Since starting over, my screen is so dark I can barley see. Last night I tried following instructions on this thread, and on http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... d1b6cfb754 this thread and a few others, but I'm missing where do I find the command line? This must be such a basic thing because - again - searching online is no help for finding it in the labyrinth of folders.

(you'd think variations on "puppy linux- "-where is the command line?" "-find command line" "-folder tree to command line" would get me somewhere, but no luck.)

/sys/class/backlight/ takes me to folders "sony" and "intel" - - there are files in there that are titled "backlight" but I dn't know what they are. When clicked on, nothing happens. They don't open to anything I can edit.

I'm alright with computers, but a complete newbie in terms of WHERE do you find things?????
Primary question: How do I make my screen brighter? // Where is the command line??

Thanks for your help!!

npierce · #11 Post by **npierce** » Mon 25 Nov 2013, 22:45

peartreesong,

Welcome to the forum.

peartreesong wrote:. . . but I'm missing where do I find the command line?

Using the menus, this should get you to a command line:

Menu -> Utility -> Urxvt Terminal Emulator

(At least that's where it is in Precise 5.7.1. Precise 5.6.1 is probably the same, but I'm not sure.)

Alternatively, if you currently have restored the original icons to your desktop, you can click on the icon labeled "console".

The method for adjusting the backlight differs for different hardware. I don't know what works for your Sony, but once you get to the command line, I hope that the advice in the thread you found will work for you.

peartreesong · #12 Post by **peartreesong** » Mon 25 Nov 2013, 23:39

npierce, thanks for the response.

When I click "Urxvt terminal emulator" in the utility menu, nothing happens. I checked PPM and it says it's downloaded.

Console isn't on my desktop. Do you know where it lives in the directories?

Thank you

npierce · #13 Post by **npierce** » Tue 26 Nov 2013, 00:44

/usr/bin/urxvt

peartreesong · #14 Post by **peartreesong** » Tue 26 Nov 2013, 19:30

/usr/bin/urxvt does not exist

rxvt icon exists, but when clicked on it says it doesn't exist.

ppm still says it's downloaded.

npierce · #15 Post by **npierce** » Thu 28 Nov 2013, 00:04

Unless you have a "full" installation, you can try /initrd/pup_ro2/usr/bin/urxvt and if that works, you can copy it to the /usr/bin/ directory.

(If you have a "full" installation you would need to mount your Puppy CD, then mount the puppy_precise_5.6.1.sfs file found on it, and copy it from there.)

peartreesong · #16 Post by **peartreesong** » Thu 28 Nov 2013, 05:33

Okay,
urxvt is there, but the command line from the "how to adjust screen brightness" (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... d1b6cfb754) doesn't work for me or I'm doing it incorrectly.

Message "sys: Read-only file system"

ThoriumBlvd · #17 Post by **ThoriumBlvd** » Thu 28 Nov 2013, 12:00

Its quite possible that there's a hot-key combination to adjust the screen brightness from the keyboard. The OP to this thread found such keys.

Usually pressing the Fn key plus f1, f2, etc up to f12 is the shortcut. Your keyboard may even be marked with them.

Not sure if your 'puter is desk or laptop... most laptops have these shortcuts.

npierce · #18 Post by **npierce** » Thu 28 Nov 2013, 12:00

Look again at that post. Directories should be separated with a slash character (/), not a greater than character (>). Also you will need a slash before "sys", which wasn't shown in that post. So the line should look like this:

Code: Select all

echo -n 7 > /sys/class/backlight/sony/brightness

Sky Aisling · #19 Post by **Sky Aisling** » Mon 02 Dec 2013, 02:03

Welcome to the forum, peartreesong

To the readers of this thread:
peartreesong is a neighbor of mine and I set up her machine with Puppy 5.6.1.
I brought her machine to my house tonight and I am now working on the issue of screen brightness.

To the forum moderator reading this:
Would you prefer we start a new thread as we are jumping into Bligh's thread?

In-the-meantime...

Here is what I've done so far this evening:
I attached the machine to an external monitor.
I repartitioned the hard drive and installed Precise-Puppy 5.7.1 as a full install on sda1.

Here's what I know so far.

The external monitor shows the desktop clear and normal.
The laptop screen shows about .75% of normal.

I tinkered with Xorg Wizard/Monitor gamma calibration with no apparent results.

I searched xorg.conf-/etc/x11 and found "screen0".
(There were several xorg.conf files to choose. I chose xorg.conf. See screenshot.)

A rather grim report is that as I work on the machine, the screen gets a little darker and darker.
The temp gauge in Hardinfo show normal temp, but, it shows two identical temps? The machine has only one HDD.

I think this is a hardware issue because:
The low brightness of the laptop screen begins at the manufacturer's boot screen whether there is an OS present or not.
The external monitor is clear and presenting normal brightness.

Have I missed something that might save this box?
Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Never mind, the video card has failed completely. I get nothing but a black screen starting from power up.

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