Workaround for UL30 (UL30A-A2 and others) brightness keys in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)

Minsang Kim

EDIT (2011-05-11): this should also work for 11.04.

With some models of Asus ul30 family (mine is ul30a-a2), brightness hotkeys don’t work properly in Lucid.  They change the brightness somewhat randomly, also sometimes causing ACPI to “freeze”.

The actual bug is here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/543294

The (temporary) workaround, originally from here:

Edit /etc/default/grub as root
Find, and change this line : GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”acpi_backlight=vendor”
call update-grub as root, reboot.

Since not being able to run popular distros can be a dealbreaker for laptop buyers, here’s a summary of my experience with this laptop:

Question: How well does Lucid Lynx run on UL30A-A2?

Answer: Flawless, except for the brightness key bug mentioned above and screen flickers, which also has a workaround.

3 thoughts on “Workaround for UL30 (UL30A-A2 and others) brightness keys in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)”

  1. hi, the solution for the brightness bug works fine. I’m also experiencing the screen flickering, can you tell me the workaround for it? Thanks

    Reply

  2. I have a problem with the Fn+F9 toggling of the touchpad as well. and the flickering. Please help? I would love to continue using Ubuntu.

    Reply

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