Macbook Pro backlight control not working on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I'm trying to fix the backlight issue on my Macbook Pro Retina after installing Ubuntu 16.04.

The problem is the backlight dimmer buttons F1 F2 or Fn+F1 and Fn+F2 are not working at all after installing Ubuntu 16.04.

I have run in some answers that recommends to set the acpi_backlight=vendor on the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter and rebooting it and still not working.

Also I've tried this other workaround https://itsfoss.com/fix-brightness-ubuntu-1310/ but the ls /sys/class/backlight/ directory returns different files, I've also tried to set some configuration similar to the one proposed on the link but then I got an error at booting Ubuntu on the graphics card.

Have anybody figured this out?

Solution 1

1. In the Terminal application enter:

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia-brightness.conf

2. Paste:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "[GPU]"
    Option         "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

3. In a new terminal tab (Control + T) or window enter:

lspci | grep -i --color 'vga\|3d\|2d'

4. In the first terminal substitude the word [GPU] for the name between brackets shown in the second terminal, leaving out the brackets.

5. Save the document in the first terminal (Control + O), and reboot the computer.

Solution 2

For me, adding the setpci command to /etc/rc.local worked, but only after I also added the shebang #!/bin/sh and made the file executable. This could be the reason why that solution doesn't work for people in whose systems rc.local didn't already exist.

Comments

[malat]

Leads to screen blanking, I could not get passed boot screen. So definitely not a solution for GeForce GT 650M Mac Edition

[Alberto Salvia Novella]

Worked in GeForce 9400M in Ubuntu 16.04.

[Jay]

Doesn't work for GeForce GT 750M Mac Edition in Arch Linux

[Alexey]

Didn't work for GeForce 9400M on a MacBook 2008 with LinuxMint 19.1. Did you set your GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to some special value by any chance?

[Alberto Salvia Novella]

I returned the computer to the owner, so I cannot check.

[Philippe Paré]

patch was applied in kernel v 4.16 FWIW...