Version: (using Devel) OS: Linux Installed from: Compiled sources This happens within one state, i.e. it is not the same bug as the one where powerdevil changes brightness when changing power profiles. If one decreases the brightness manually, e.g. to the lowest possible value via the netbook's hotkey, it is reset to the profile's level of brightness if the user is not active for a minute. If however the user keeps on using the mouse or typing the brightness stays at the manually set level. Disabling "dim screen if user inactive" does not help, it was set to 10 minutes anyway for the power profile in use.
I have a similar issue. When I set the brightness in the battery monitor manually the brightness is reset to the lowest level as soon as I reopen the battery monitor.
So the basic idea when the idle timeout is reached the brightness should not be just set to the configured value but it should be checked if the current brightness is already lower. if (currentBrightness() > configuredBrightness) setBrightness(configuredBrightness);
KDE 4.4.2 (KDE 4.4.2) "release 234": issue is still present. Furthermore, the time is not 1 minute, but 30 seconds. What is even worse, there is no way to disable brightness handling by powerdevil (except the obvious one: disable powerdevil). So I have to choose one level of brightness or another.
This is particularly annoying, since this happens whether or not I've allowed the battery applet to manage display brightness.
Though, you still cannot disable Powerdevil from altering brighness, bug is gone in my system KDE 4.5.0. To test it I have set brightness to maximum, while in profile it was set to minimum. Brighness remained untouched for more than 10 minutes. And I noticed that 4.4.4 already had it fixed too, but I just didn't checked it with stopwatch. So it is FIXED in my system.
Should have been fixed in 4.5, but it definitely is in 4.6, as the profile reload routines do not affect this behavior anymore and dim screen gets back to the user's chosen brightness.