On 24 Apr 2011, Camaleón wrote: > On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:49:26 +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: > > > On 23 Apr 2011, Camaleón wrote: > > >> Also, check for a BIOS update, most of these "ACPI things" are usually > >> fixed after updating to the latest BIOS. > >> > >> > > Thanks, Camaleon. I found a lot of people using the same laptop with > > Windows who have the same problem. In some cases a bios upgrade fixed > > it, in others not. I tried to do this but it requires using an .exe > > file, and though I could do this with both wine and dosemu I couldn't > > obtain a suitable iso file to do the upgrade. (Also, I was a little > > afraid of ending up with an unbootable machine, which a few people > > report as happening.) > > Don't be afraid of a BIOS update. Laptops need this piece of code to be > updated more often than desktops machines due to buggy firmware and > notebook's embedded nature. > > What happens here is that manufacturers do not always provide a utility > to extract the update file in order you can put it into a USB/CD-ROM to > run the update and sadly the complete procedure needs to be done in a > windows environment. > > (That's one of the reasons why it is a good idea to do not remove the > windows partition although you don't use it on your day work :-/) >
Yes, I was keeping it for that reason, but unfortunately it has ceased to work for some reason. > > BUT I have found that by unloading and reloading the video module > > (and/or the radeon module) I can sometimes obtain the requisite > > backlight file in /sys/devices/virtual .., after which the screen either > > becomes bright automatically or I can do it manually. So it seems to be > > something to do with the order in which the modules are loaded, though I > > can't figure out what. The effect is unpredictable - sometimes it works, > > sometimes not. > > If you can wait with that bypass, msot sure is that any kernel update > will solve the problem as you seemed to experience with 2.6.37 and 2.6.38 > branches. > There was an upgrade of 2.6.38 in unstable today and also an upgrade of udev. Unfortunately I now can't even get 2.6.37 to work reliably, though it did after a bit of fiddling. It's just hit and miss. I've come to the conclusion I hate all laptops! -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110424121537.gc2...@acampbell.org.uk