On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 14:04 -0500, Bob Goodwin wrote: > Sam Varshavchik wrote: > > I thought that I was going nuts at first, but I confirmed this after > > some experimentation: after upgrading one of my laptops to Fedora 8, > > the LCD backlight seems to autoadjust itself according to the ambient > > light level in the room. This did not happen in Fedora 7. > > > > I left the laptop running, then came back a few minutes later with the > > lights off in the room, and the laptop's screen was about half at its > > usual brightness. I thought that it was some screensaver at first, but > > it wasn't. Uh-oh, is my backlight busted? I turned on the lights in > > the room, so I could see better, and immediately the LCD went up to > > its full brightness level. I turned the lights off, and a few seconds > > later the display dimmed to about a 50% level. WTF? > > > > This is a no-name brand laptop. I have a small widget directly above > > the screen that is labeled with a small etched picture of a > > microphone. That's, apparently, my laptop's built-in microphone, which > > I never used. I discovered that if I cover up the entire microphone > > sensor, that triggers the backlight to dim to half power. Looks like I > > have an ambient light sensor in there. News to me -- the laptop's ~2 > > years old, and I never knew about it until now. It apparently didn't > > do anything in F7, neither does the dual-booted Win XP pay any > > attention to the came, but in F8 it came alive and made its presence > > known. > > > > Does anyone know anything about this, and, specifically, if there's > > anything in F8 Gnome that lets me tweak this sensor's settings? I > > don't see anything going to /var/log/messages when I play with the > > sensor. A brief search didn't find anything. I don't see anything in > > the Gnome power management menu, except the usual global backlight > > levels for AC Power and Battery modes, and I can trigger this sensor > > both on AC Power, and battery power, apparently. > > > > > > > Have you considered black electrical tape over the sensor? > Click and Clack would be proud of this answer. -- ======================================================================= It takes both a weapon, and two people, to commit a murder. ======================================================================= Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
