2012.1 - brightness control keys don't work.

[Howard]

I am using a Dell 10v netbook.   Recently my 2010 LXDE installation failed to boot so I installed LXDE 2012.1 on a different partition. There is also an old KDE3.5 installation in a third partition that still works .  (They all access the same data partitions - I believe in insurance!)   (I've just found that the 2010 version will still run when added to the new boot/grub/menu.lst - I think my hard disk is dodgy!).  

In both earlier versions of PCLinuxOS unmodified F4 and F5 keys control the screen brightness in a very convenient way - but this doesn't work in 2012.1.   I guess something is missing from this version.  

I checked the keyboard type, but that isn't it.  I've also searched the forum, and found people with similar but not identical problems - but no clear solution.

[daniel]

Install acme...

[Howard]

Install acme...

The reason I didn't try this is that, in my search, I came across a comment from Neal to say that acme doesn't work with LXDE.

I installed it anyway and Neal is right.  It doesn't make any difference.  I ran it from the "run" box at the bottom of the applications menu.  Then I tried from a console, which said the Daemon was already running.

I've just checked my 2010 installation.  Acme is not installed there, but the F4, F5 keys work.  When I press them there's a popup screen with a brightness symbol and a horizontal bar indicator.  How do I get that back?

[Howard]

I've found a part solution to this problem, when the screen suddenly went very dark.  I log into the old install, set the brightness to what I want and then log off and log back in to the latest version, which comes up with the required brightness!  Surely there's an easier way?