Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Brightness Problem

Question

Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it on my laptop (Sony Vaio PCG-71811M), with Windows 8.1 dual boot. I really liked Ubuntu, and i don't think I want to delete Ubuntu and turn back Windows. But I deleted it because when trying to fix its brightness problem (low-screen mode).

Some outputs:

ls /sys/class/backlight/

It just says

acpi_video0. 

Not like intel_backlight or something.

PC:

• Intel Core i5-2450M 2.50 GHz
• 4 GB RAM
• GeForce 410M- in UBUNTU: GF119M

And some codes:

~$ lspci | egrep "VGA|3D|Display"

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119M [GeForce 410M] (rev a1)

---

~$ glxinfo | grep render

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 410M/PCIe/SSE2
    GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, 
    GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color, GL_NV_copy_image, 
    GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object2, GL_NV_path_rendering, 
    GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, 
    GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color, GL_NV_copy_image, 
    GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object2, GL_NV_path_rendering, 

---

~$ lspci


00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119M [GeForce 410M] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
07:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
0d:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5209 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
13:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)

---

~$ xrandr

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1366 x 768, maximum 16384 x 16384
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS-0 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 194mm
   1366x768       60.0*+
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

---

Answer 1

Not 100% sure this will fix the issue, but I am finding workarounds for older versions of Ubuntu, so I'm confident these fixes have been incorporated in xorg-edgers.

Supported Cards (using 346.16 drivers) GeForce 410M

346 may be out of beta now, but this was still in beta as of December. If it's still beta and you want to use latest stable, replace last command with the 343 version command.

To add the xorg-edgers ppa (terminal commands)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-346 nvidia-settings

Again, not sure if 346 still in beta. If you look and is and not comfortable with beta, the latest stable would be

sudo apt-get install nvidia-343 nvidia-settings

And if you want to remove them

 sudo apt-get remove nvidia*
 sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

remove xorg configuration:

 sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reinstall the Mesa package for GL:

 sudo apt-get --reinstall install libgl1-mesa-glx

And then reboot. you would then just need to go back to 311 if you wanted.