Version: (using Devel) Compiler: GCC 4.2.4 OS: Linux Installed from: Compiled sources When KDE 4 loads on my Asus laptop the brightness is automatically changed (drastically reduced). At first I thought it would come from Plasma or KWin but it appears that launching KDE 4 apps from a KDE 3 session causes the very same problem. Hopefully function keys (including brightness) work so I can still play with KDE but it is quite annoying.
That's not a bug, that's a feature :) You are probably using trunk and you have powerdevil installed. This can be configured from systemsettings->advanced->power management.
I might consider it as a feature if : 1) it asked me, or at the very least warned me before taking action 2) it was not so intrusive (I obviously do not want any such "feature" enabled when I just run any KDE application (and not the entire desktop environment)) 3) it did not mess with my brightness when I'm plugged on AC adaptator 4) there were an obvious and easy-to-find way of disabling it None of the above four conditions being met at the moment I consider this as a bug (remember that improper default settings can just as annoying as severe bugs).
Well, consider that at the moment at least every powermanager on earth does a similar thing on default. About 2), starting a KDE application starts KDED, though powerdevil checks if there are other power managers available on your system, and disables itself automatically if that's the case. About 3) the default for adaptor plugged in is 100% brightness And About 4), systemsettings. I don't think changing these defaults is a great idea
@Dario : 2) means invasive behavior as far as I am concerned (and many users may be) : at the moment KDE 4 is not stable enough for daily use but there are still some apps I want to use (or at least regularly test) from my KDE 3 session. If I don't run a full KDE session I expect the strict minimum of extra services to be loaded and IMO powermanagement is not part of that strict minimum regardless of wether there is already a power manager running or not. If my use case does not look relevant think about people wanting to use k3b, amarok, koffice,... from another DE which does not provide satisfying alternatives 3) then there is a bug in the detection of the AC adaptator being plugged or not... Or a bug in the level of brightness assignment (wrong value sent to the monitor). Something is wrong either ways... 4) this goes together with (1) : if KDE changes a setting that affects the computer as a whole (e.g. brightness) it *SHOULD* inform the user (and not leave him wondering wether its monitor suddendly went mad) and provide a simple way back. Something as trivial as a QMessageBox (or KMessageBox if it exists) would do...
Well, actually, a notification is displayed everytime a profile changes. I don't know if in a KDE3/GNOME environment KNotifications are displayed though.
And then? There is no such thing as a profile change in what I'm doing : PowerDevil simply alter my hardware settings *by default* in the way that does not even follow the intended default behavior and that is invasive (regardless which DE I'm actually running).
You probably misunderstood what a profile, and probably PowerDevil is. A profile is a set of hardware configuration, and it changes (by default) when the adaptor is plugged in/out. You can configure this in systemsettings so that the profile won't be changed at all. Everytime you plug/unplug the adaptor, a notification is shown. If you don't like this, you can simply switch this behavior off by telling powerdevil to use always the same profile, or even disable powerdevil itself in settings. But, I don't think changing the current defaults is a good idea. 99% of laptop users want the PC to change configuration when laptop is on Battery, and thanks to KRunner/Battery applet profile can be switched in a second. The only thing I feel it can be done is to make PowerDevil detect if the user is running another desktop session different than KDE4, and disable it automatically. Though I don't know if this could interfere with some people who want to run it on DEs different from KDE4.
I know what PowerDevil is but I indeed wasn't aware of what a profile precisely is in that case. Thanks for clearing things up in that aspect. I understand that the default setting for laptop running on battery may be a lower brightness and don't argue with that, though a message box explaining what happened and how revert this would be nice. e.g : ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerDevil detected that you are running on Battery. It automatically reduced the brightness to minimize power consumption. You can change this behavior in systemsettings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] Do not show this message again ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Ok| |Revert change| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- However, as I previously explained, PowerDevil messes with my brightness EVEN IF I am on AC (I've not tried (un)plugging the AC adaptator, I just happen to boot my laptop on AC lately and it looks like PowerDevil fails to figure this out and thus takes a wrong decision. Even if the above suggestion is not taken into account, this remains an important issue. Last, but not least, I do indeed think that KDE daemons/services should not invade a non-KDE desktop session unless that is stricly necessary (I can understand why kded, ksycoca, ... need to be running when I launch amarok for instance but powerdevil definitely does not qualify as a "stricly necessary" service).
Ok, now I see what's the point in your suggestion, and stay assured I'll implement your idea, because it seems really nice to me. Accepting the bug. About the issue you mentioned, I'd like you to run some more test, maybe you have just a wrong profile setting. If you could check what profile gets loaded when you have the AC plugged in, and cross-check it with what you specified in the systemsettings module, I'd really appreciate it. I can't comment about the KDED stuff, though I recognize it isn't really nice to have a lot of services loaded just when you want to open an application, but I think this should be discussed in a separate bug. Thanks for reporting
I can run more tests if you want but I'd need more explanation on how those profile stuff works as I'm not yet familiar with KDE 4 internals (though I have a couple of years of Qt 4 programming experience so it should not be that hard to catch up). For your information I haven't specified anything yet in systemsettings. I just compiled KDE 4 from trunk and ran it. As for the KDED behavior you're right I'd better report it in a separate thread.
I, too, have an Asus laptop (G1S-X3, Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT), and PowerDevil dims the backlight whenever I login with the AC-adapter connected. I have PowerDevil configured to use the Dynamic-Aggressive scheme with the adapter plugged in and the backlight set to full, and it seems to select the correct profile upon login - however - it still wants to dim the backlight. I'll configure it to use the performance scheme, reboot, and report back.
Nope - it dims the backlight regardless. Clicking the battery monitor icon shows the correct scheme (Performance), and the backlight slider is set to full, but its actual level is as dim as it can be. Strangely, if I drag it slightly to left, enough to change the brightness, it brightens to where it should be.
Edit, I meant it brightens if I drag the slider to the right (I guess I can't tell my left from right :)
I played with PowerDevil configuration lately. I thought it was fucked up because no matter what mode I used it did not change anything, there was no option to prevent it from messing with brightness and brightness slider where all set to maximum (at the rightmost). Then, in a moment of despair I tried setting the brightness slider to minimum (at the leftmost) and yepeee : brightness went up and my desktop was usable again :D So powerdevil seems to work correctly but somewhere in the brightness-setting stack there is a bug which cause (some) laptops display to be dimmed when they should not (and vice versa). I don't have the slightest hint as to where the bug lies but I'm volunteering to test changes and confirm (or infirm) that they fix things. best regards fullmetalcoder
I also have an ASUS laptop (G50) and have issues with brightness when starting kde. Additional information: Using the guidance power manager icon tray (comes with kubuntu) to change the brightness, it works fine. But using the Battery Monitor applet, a weird behaviour happens: when setting the slider to the right, it gets dark. To the left, it gets bright. I suppose its reversed. But before getting dark, it flicks to bright for some miliseconds. And before getting bright, it flicks dark. Its like its setting "dark" in one place, and then "bright" on the other, and this options are colliding. So, slider to the right means it will flick bright, but sets dark (which is wrong). But if i use the key (Fn+F7) to power off and then power on the LCD, it gets bright. Ie, turning off and on the LCD "corrects" the problem. This makes me believe powerdevil is "storing" LCD brightness correctly in the hardware, but "temporarily setting" it incorrectly, at least in ASUS laptops.
Thanks to Lubos, PowerDevil now loads only upon starting a KDE4 session, hence this bug is fixed