Comment 58 for bug 12637

I use Kubuntu 8.04 on a Lenovo 3000 C200 laptop. I did a fresh install of Hardy.

I get this dimming on every boot, at exactly the same point - somewhere around when the hardware drives are being loaded. When the desktop is fully loaded the brightness comes back automatically. But the login screen is quite dark.

The same thing happens at shutdown, and the reduced brightness then remains at the beginning of the next boot. I can however get the brightness up with the brightness keys, but only if I do it quickly at the very start. But the dimming then occurs again when the harware drivers are being loaded.

The brightness buttons on my laptop work at the start of the boot process, but then stop working as soon as the brightness drops. When the brightness automatically comes back (when the desktop is loaded), they start working again.

The same dimming also occurs every time I start VLC. It also happens when I switch off "Enable power saving" in KDE Control Center. (Reenebling the power saving however does not resurrect the brightness.)

I can always get the brightness back to normal if click on the Power Manager applet, and then change the brightness setting there. The brightness control there is set to maximum, although the actual brightness is very low. Changing the setting to something else (doesn't matter what) gets things back to normal (I usually take it down a notch, and then back up to maximum).

I can also - sometimes - get things back to normal if I touch anything in Monitor & Display -> Size, orientation & Positioning (in the Control Center), but that part of the Control Center behaves strangely and unpredictably.

Those solutions are of course just temporary. All I need to do to dim the screen, is to start VLC, or reboot.

Nothing like this happend in Gutsy, neither in Ubuntu nor in Kubuntu. I haven't seen it on any other version either. It started with one of the beta or RC versions of the Live CD, and it remains in the final release. It's very annoying.