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Toshiba Satellite Pro A300: Fn+F6 & Fn+F7 (screen brightness) not working

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m654321

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Just to add that the Fn-key combinations for screen brightness, or other 'Fn features' didn't work on the Toshiba Satellite Pro A300 in LL2.8 either.

UPDATE 1
The good news is I've got the 'brightness keys' to work, following a further fresh install of LL3.0, which was used to overwrite the previous version

I appear to have narrowed the problem down to the presence of the proprietary ESET antivirus package for Linux that I use, i.e. eset_nod32av_64bit_en.linux. Without the antivirus installed, the Fn+F6 & Fn+F7 appear to function in LL3.0, but not in LL2.8. So well done the LL-team, with this aspect of Toshiba interface compatibility with LL3.0, at least for the screen brightness issue.  As I'm not dual-booting with Windows OS, I'll probably be fine without an antivirus.  Instead, I'll look at whether ClamAV, from the LL repository, is compatible with the functioning of the 'brightness keys'.  I'll give an update on this later, here on this thread.

Interesting to note that the 'brightness-keys-incompatibility' with ESET, doesn't occur with setups (1) to (3) in signature below. Trawling through the internet shows that the 'fn-key issue' is a problem commonly associated with Toshiba.  Apparently, Toshiba haven't produced an Fn-interface that's compatible with Linux, though an open source version, called Toshset, does exist - synaptic package manager  shows that it's installed by default in both LL2.8 and LL3.0.  However, when I type Toshset in terminal, I get the error message "required kernel toshiba support not enabled" (in both LL2.8 & 3.0) - a few searches on the internet shows that this too is an often-reported problem.

I'm going to mark this as solved, as I've found the source of the Fn keys problem, even though I'm unsure how to resolve this in the presence of ESET software. Instead I'll just take evasive action, avoiding ESET-use altogether, on this Toshiba laptop...

Cheers
Mike
« Last Edit: October 11, 2016, 08:36:24 AM by m654321 »
64bit OS (32-bit on Samsung netbook) installed in Legacy mode on MBR-formatted SSDs (except pi which uses a micro SDHC card):
2017 - Raspberry pi 3B (4cores) ~ [email protected] - LibreElec, used for upgrading our Samsung TV (excellent for the task)  
2012 - Lenovo G580 2689 (2cores; 4threads] ~ [email protected] - LL3.8/Win8.1 dual-boot (LL working smoothly)
2011 - Samsung NP-N145 Plus (1core; 2threads) ~ Intel Atom [email protected] - LL 3.8 32-bit (64-bit too 'laggy')
2008 - Asus X71Q (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6/Win8.1 dual-boot, LL works fine with kernel 4.15
2007 - Dell Latitude D630 (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6, works well with kernel 4.4; 4.15 doesn't work
 

Toshiba Satellite Pro A300: Fn+F6 & Fn+F7 (screen brightness) not working
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2016, 03:48:54 AM »
 

m654321

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Have just set up LL3.0 on my sister's Toshiba Satellite Pro A300 - I've got a problem with the screen brightness control - the Fn key combinations for changing screen brightness (in a continuous fashion) are not working, i.e. Fn+F6, decrease; Fn+F7, increase brightness.

In an attempt to fix this I did the following, in the terminal, using gksudo leafpad /etc/default/grub:
changed GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi="

This didn't work so the next thing I tried was...

changed GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"

This didn't work either.

I'd be grateful for any help on this, as full-screen brightness can be really tiring in the evening, as you know only too well, and the f.lux app (f.lux alters the quality & intensity of the PC screen's backlighting as a function of the time of day), which I use routinely on my setups, doesn't seem to function - I assume this is related to the screen brightness problem.


Thanks in advance for any help on this one...
Mike
« Last Edit: October 10, 2016, 12:31:01 PM by m654321 »
64bit OS (32-bit on Samsung netbook) installed in Legacy mode on MBR-formatted SSDs (except pi which uses a micro SDHC card):
2017 - Raspberry pi 3B (4cores) ~ [email protected] - LibreElec, used for upgrading our Samsung TV (excellent for the task)  
2012 - Lenovo G580 2689 (2cores; 4threads] ~ [email protected] - LL3.8/Win8.1 dual-boot (LL working smoothly)
2011 - Samsung NP-N145 Plus (1core; 2threads) ~ Intel Atom [email protected] - LL 3.8 32-bit (64-bit too 'laggy')
2008 - Asus X71Q (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6/Win8.1 dual-boot, LL works fine with kernel 4.15
2007 - Dell Latitude D630 (2cores) ~ Intel [email protected] - LL4.6, works well with kernel 4.4; 4.15 doesn't work
 

 

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