Today I upgraded my kernel, so am running 2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 and am pleased to announce that on the Dell Inspiron 640m, brightness control works. Well, sort of. I can reduce brightness and increase brightness, but increasing brightness (Fn+ UpArrow) while in X, still causes X to crash. All that’s recorded is:
Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x8b on isa0060/serio0).
Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e00b <keycode>' to make it known.
As long as video.ko is loaded, I can hit Fn+F8 quite successfully, and get video out working now. Its in mirror mode as opposed to a stretched desktop, but I’m somewhat thankful as GNOMEs panel is still retarded when it comes to shrinking down (watch it go apeshit on you). However, repeated attempts (say, 8th time pressing the Fn+F8 key combo and it cycles between displaying on the onboard LCD, mirroring, just the external LCD, and so on) will cause the entire display driver to crash. Nothing will then be viewable, so a reboot is in lieu.
The sound control via hardware buttons still do not work (they used to back in the 2.6.18 days, afaik). Both the hardware and the Fn-key combos don’t work.
So I decided I need to be a good open source citizen, and report some bugs. #236866, #236867. I also updated the Fedora on the Dell Inspiron 640m wiki page.
For what it is worth, Desktop Effects has decided to stop working (to amuse myself I tried to enable it today). Its now nice to note that I can give presentations using my Linux box again, and things will be working (quite unlike my last experience) . I’m also excited to note that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is coming out tomorrow, and at the same time annoyed that I’ll be travelling and don’t want to futz with my main work machine. Rob Weir will be glad to note that its only taken 2 years for me to start seeing the light.
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