Comment 26 for bug 145337

I'm encountering this problem on my asus w7j too.

Basically:
- pressing keys gives acpi event (checked wich acpi_listen), which in turn generates fake keypress events (checked with xev) and hal events (checked by hal -m)
- pressing keys does change brightness in gnome. 'cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCDD/brightness' value does not change. 'cat /proc/acpi/asus/brn' value changes.
- pressing keys does not change brightness in KDE or on console, 'cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCDD/brightness' does not change. 'cat /proc/acpi/asus/brn' value does not change.
- changing brightness settings in KDE power management settings works, and 'cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCDD/brightness' does not change. 'cat /proc/acpi/asus/brn' value changes.

my conclusion:
- acpi stuff now only generates events and does not takes action anymore
- gnome power manager is the only app currently able to catch these key or hal events and change brightness accordingly
- there's no app for KDE able to do that
- there's no console app either

so one should:
1. implement this in kde power manager
2. implement this in a daemon listening for hal events (so that it works in console mode)
3. make sure those cooperate so that brightness is not set multiple times for one keypress

note: bugs above regarding gnome-power-manager working and then not were unrelated to this one and fixed (see tvst comment).