debian_jessie Debian 8 Jessie, Brightness not functioning.

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

I'm on Debian 8, and will not be changing that. I need brightness control, and have AMD hardware, with ASUS laptop.

Okay, let me give a full loadout of my situation.

Spoiler

1.) I'm on Debian 8 Jessie with LXDE desktop, I am in deep need of staying on this build for the time being. Also I hate debians default desktop so I goto my favourite (LXDE)
2.) My fn+f5/f6 brightness keys aren't working for brightness control (yes I know this is extremely common and done my due diligence hunting the various methods of fixing it)
3.) I'm on an Asus Laptop x542B AMD A9 processor
4.) xrandr --verbose output

Spoiler

root@debian:~# xrandr --verbose
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1366 x 768, current 1366 x 768, maximum 1366 x 768
default connected 1366x768+0+0 (0x180) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm
   Identifier: 0x17f
   Timestamp: 13067
   Subpixel: unknown
   Clones:
   CRTC: 0
   CRTCs: 0
   Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
   0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
   0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
   filter:
1366x768 (0x180) 79.731MHz *current
h: width 1366 start 0 end 0 total 1366 skew 0 clock 58.37KHz
v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 76.00Hz

5.) root@debian:~# xbacklight
No outputs have backlight property

6.) Find brightness output

Spoiler

root@debian:~# find /sys/ -type f -iname '*brightness*'
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.7/leds/mmc0::/brightness
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.7/leds/mmc0::/max_brightness
/sys/module/video/parameters/brightness_switch_enabled

7.) ln -s (symbolic link set)

Spoiler

root@debian:~# ln -s "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.7/leds/mmc0::" /sys/class/backlight
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘/sys/class/backlight/mmc0::’: Operation not permitted

I have Hyper Photosensitivity in the eyes (also called Photophobia *(I don't like calling it a phobia it just doesn't make sense to me)), so brightness gives me severe headaches quickly.

Previously I was using Virtual Box to run debian 8 for my application I was using and decided to fully install it to be without the windows overhead and Virtualization overhead (I am dual booting it), I won't disclose what it is, but right now it will be a massive pain to migrate it to my preferred OSes, CentOS or Ubuntu

Can anyone help? I mean of course someone can and will this is the LTT forum. Thanks in advance!

Edited January 14, 2019 by KeldonSlayer
I added a tiny bit of history.

Mycielski · January 14, 2019

I had the same issue on my Acer laptop, with Intel processor. The following solved the problem for me:

Open the file at /etc/default/grub with gedit (or something else)
Find this line in the file: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and modify it to this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"
Save the file, and exit the text editor.
Then run update-grub command in terminal.
Then reboot.

Hope it helps!

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

I now have this new linked folder /sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi
Now to make an xorg.conf and see if that functions.

Section "Device"
Identifier  "0x17a"
Driver      "asus-nb-wmi"
Option      "Backlight"  "asus-nb-wmi"
EndSection
The driver wasn't sure what to put as none of the info online is worth a damn,
 because I had 'radeon' there before and it caused a failed load of the Light Display Module or whatever
(but it had a /sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi/device/driver of which had a link back to asus-nb-wmi in /sys/class/backlight)

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

Well, that change caused the desktop to not load, but it popped me into console instead, so I just reverted my change by deleting the xorg.conf. (that I made)

And I still have no way to change brightness.

Spoiler

root@debian:~# xrandr --verbose
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1366 x 768, current 1366 x 768, maximum 1366 x 768
default connected 1366x768+0+0 (0x17f) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm
   Identifier: 0x17e
   Timestamp: 13767
   Subpixel: unknown
   Clones:
   CRTC: 0
   CRTCs: 0
   Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
   0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
   0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
   filter:
1366x768 (0x17f) 79.731MHz *current
h: width 1366 start 0 end 0 total 1366 skew 0 clock 58.37KHz
v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 76.00Hz
root@debian:~# xrandr --output 0x17e --brightness 0
xrandr: Gamma size is 0.
root@debian:~# xrandr --output 0x17e --brightness 100
xrandr: Gamma size is 0.
root@debian:~# xbacklight -set 10
No outputs have backlight property

Further information, I tried to manually set brightness via the method on ArchWiki and manually and both failed and reset the value to 0. (I changed to -20 since value was -19 and max is 0)

Spoiler

root@debian:/sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi# ls
actual_brightness brightness max_brightness subsystem uevent
bl_power device power type
root@debian:/sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi# cat brightness
0
root@debian:/sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi# cat actual_brightness
-19
root@debian:/sys/class/backlight/asus-nb-wmi# cat max_brightness
0

Edited January 14, 2019 by KeldonSlayer
Added testing information

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

It's 5 am for me, going to bed in hopes of having a resolution when I awake in about 9 hours.

January 14, 2019

6 hours ago, KeldonSlayer said:

It's 5 am for me, going to bed in hopes of having a resolution when I awake in about 9 hours.

Don't do anything related to X.org, delete any other xorg config

Try those acpi methods

7 hours ago, Mycielski said:

I had the same issue on my Acer laptop, with Intel processor. The following solved the problem for me:

Open the file at /etc/default/grub with gedit (or something else)

Find this line in the file: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and modify it to this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"

Save the file, and exit the text editor.

Then run update-grub command in terminal.

Then reboot.

Hope it helps!

also try using acpi_backlight=native as an alternative you can try also the following remember to update-grub and reboot

to be sure the driver is loaded (it should)

lsmod | grep amdgpu

lsmod | grep radeon

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

I do believe I told you I read from the ArchWiki article already, anywho.
Here's the results, acpi_backlight=vendor as I said above in my reply, created a new symlink to the asus-nb-wmi folder, acpi_backlight=native removed the link and changed nothing else in the system., acpi_backlight=none did nothing more than native.

Each reboot I tried setting brightness using xrandr --output 0x17e --brightness 0 and xrandr --output 0x17e --brightness 1 and xrandr --output 0x17e --brightness 0.2 and xbacklight -set 10 and fn + f5/f6 and manually changing the file in the /sys/class/backlight/ * files

As for the kernel module, I already double checked it's listed in lsmod both "asus-wmi" and "asus-nb-wmi".

I have used Linux since 2010, I do know enough to get by, and know enough, to know where to look for answers, and how much to search before giving up and resorting to forums.
The Udev rule isn't working for me, as I've pointed out above my brightness max is 0, and current brightness is -19, and changing the value whatsoever resets it to 0, except by using udev, it doesn't change it at all leaving it -19, and I tried in udev through 8 restarts as of writing this, changing it to -20, -50, -80, 10, -10, -4, -42, -1 (I tried positive 10 just in case, and -42 was I gave up and just tried it)

lsmod | grep amdgpu
lsmod | grep radeon
both return nothing but I did install xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu as well as followed this https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

So I have no clue what's breaking and where, also manually installing driver using insmod on the /libs/modules/3.16.0.6-amd64/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon.ko throws an error "insmod: ERROR: could not insert module radeon.ko: Unknown symbol in module"
I did this
cd /libs/modules/3.16.0.6-amd64/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm
insmod radeon.ko
error

Now to clarify, every time I restarted with a change to acpi_backlight=* the xrandr --verbose changed Identifier, like right now it's 0x197
and I did make those changes in anything requiring the Identifier that I used to test, every time. (EG:

xrandr --output 0x197 --brightness 0

)

January 14, 2019

58 minutes ago, KeldonSlayer said:

So I have no clue what's breaking and where, also manually installing driver using insmod on the /libs/modules/3.16.0.6-amd64/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon.ko throws an error "insmod: ERROR: could not insert module radeon.ko: Unknown symbol in module"
I did this
cd /libs/modules/3.16.0.6-amd64/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm
insmod radeon.ko
error

That could be the issue

Anyway don't touch the udev rule, it's not needed on Debian and definitely not for a broken functionality like that

First of all AMD drivers are preinstalled and you shouldn't insmod, but modprobe instead, and this definitely shouldn't give you "unknown symbol"

Try to install the linux-firmware-nonfree and linux-firmware packages, if you don't see them enable from the repos by adding "contrib non-free" on the sources.list

Try again doing the lsmod like before, btw what GPU model is that?

Edited January 14, 2019 by Guest

KeldonSlayer · January 14, 2019

I already did the linux-firmware-nonfree, both when I installed debian I selected include non-free packages, and manually added it to list.
A9 AMD listed on ASUS's store it says AMD R5 M420.
I removed the udev rule. and lsmod doesn't have amdgpu or radeon in it.

KeldonSlayer · January 15, 2019

Okay, now that my days work is done, with the thing I needed Debian 8 for, I can now go back to changing stuff to fix the brightness issue. modprobe radeon Didn't output anything and then lsmod | grep radeon returned 4 values. So reboot should start with radeon driver.

So restarting removed the radeon stuff from modules again so modprobe command doesn't add it permanently.

lspci
>relevant output

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 98e4 (rev da)

I attached my xorg.0.log after rebooting and running modprobe radeon
brightness cannot be changed still

xorg.0.log

January 15, 2019

33 minutes ago, KeldonSlayer said:

Okay, now that my days work is done, with the thing I needed Debian 8 for, I can now go back to changing stuff to fix the brightness issue. modprobe radeon Didn't output anything and then lsmod | grep radeon returned 4 values. So reboot should start with radeon driver.

So restarting removed the radeon stuff from modules again so modprobe command doesn't add it permanently.

lspci
>relevant output

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 98e4 (rev da)

I attached my xorg.0.log after rebooting and running modprobe radeon
brightness cannot be changed still

xorg.0.log

It may actually be more recent than I thought...Especially for Debian, that could be an unupdated kernel issue anyway

You are using the fallback vesa driver btw, and probably your currently radeon driver doesn't support it

Now I don't remember if there are some clean ways to update the kernel to the latest, but as last resort I would try the most recent one or directly a live USB distro like Manjaro, which has cutting edge software (to test the drivers from there

Anyway if Radeon doesn't stick after reboot that means the driver doesn't have support for it, you could try to force the driver on /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf and adding radeon in there, this could mess up things though

Edited January 15, 2019 by Guest

KeldonSlayer · January 15, 2019

Well I fresh installed this Debian 8 about 5 hours before I posted here, spending literally that 5 hours trying various methods to fix it.
I guess I'll have to spend the time to update the software I need Debian 8 to run, to Ubuntu 18LTS or Debian 9
I hope this will work

January 15, 2019

Just now, KeldonSlayer said:

Well I fresh installed this Debian 8 about 5 hours before I posted here, spending literally that 5 hours trying various methods to fix it.
I guess I'll have to spend the time to update the software I need Debian 8 to run, to Ubuntu 18LTS or Debian 9
I hope this will work

Ubuntu may also give the same result, just try with an USB drive Manjaro (xfce live, the lightest), because Ubuntu can be outdated too

KeldonSlayer · January 15, 2019

Before I even consider moving away from the 3 I am accustomed to, I'm going to try the Live disks of Debian 9 (easiest upgrade of my software is the only reason I'm considering it), Ubuntu 18LTS (because my server is running it, and it'd be best to have a unified ecosystem), and finally CentOS (I mean it's in the end a server what I'm running so might as well go with this one)

Also regardless of the Distro, I exclusively use LXDE I don't like the others.

@LukyP I just realized I probably can't go with anything else, because the "Server" I'm running requires libstdc++5 and I'm not particularly sure if I can get it anywhere else than Debian

NVM, Ubuntu has it as well, but I need to check if ours is modified, and that would explain why we have our own repo we grab from instead of the debian package.
It's not? I just ran an MD5 and checked file sizes they're exactly the same down to the Byte I need to yell at some people.

KeldonSlayer · January 15, 2019

So debian 9 is not even starting on my laptop, it's just dead. (the live disk) it's just doing it's preparation stuff, and then stopping after shooting out a ton of error -2

KeldonSlayer · January 15, 2019

UBUNTU 18LTS it is, it works perfectly out of the box AND supports my brightness keys.

January 15, 2019

8 hours ago, KeldonSlayer said:

UBUNTU 18LTS it is, it works perfectly out of the box AND supports my brightness keys.

Oh so you can try to update the kernel on debian...

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