cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/47508691
When my laptop is on battery, the brightness changes depending on what’s on the screen.
It changes when I maximize or minimize a window, when I open or close a tooltip, when the visual bell goes off in my terminal, when I move my mouse onto something, when I’m watching a video with no input.
It is extremely annoying and I would like it to stop happening.
All the solutions I have seen only work for a Dell Inspiron with Intel CPU, and mine is AMD.
System stats
Hardware: Dell Inspiron 15 with AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon graphics.
Software: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) with Linux 6.12.43 kernel and KDE Plasma 6.3.6 desktop
Is maybe the light sensor controlling it? (if your laptop has one)
Sounds like when the brightness that the screen emmits changes, the sensor picks that up (in a darker environment?)
For a debugging step, try covering it with your fingers and check whether it still happens.
There is no light sensor in my model.
When I aim a powerful lamp directly at it, the screen brightness does not change.
Light sensors are never mentioned in the online manual for my model.
Have you tried live booting another distro?
Maybe the new KDE Linux is a good canditate. It comes with the same DE and has the newest testing versions of everything and might have a bugfix included. Also it’s arch based so there might be some default config that is different compared to what comes with debian.
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I believe some Dells have a bios setting for dynamic brightness which can be turned off.
Can’t find it in my BIOS. I tried modifying a “screen efficiency” setting, no change. All the other “power management” settings are related to the battery.
Hmm, not sure then. It might be called something different. But I do know exactly the thing you mean from having it on my work computers, and I find it very annoying, too.
