Linux Laptop Backlight Fixes On The Way For v6.1, More Testing Encouraged

Last month Red Hat engineer Hans de Goede warned that old and "weird" laptops could see broken backlight controls with the upcoming Linux 6.1 kernel. He issued a call for testing and as a result was provided valuable feedback that led to some new fixes now on the way. But there still is more work ahead and he's requested further testing by Linux laptop users to ensure the reworked backlight handling is in good shape.

On Saturday Hans de Goede blogged about the laptops found to be affected by this backlight brightness code rework and other details from this user testing feedback.

He's also now submitted a set of patches for fixing regressions to the new backlight code for the Linux 6.1 kernel. With that the backlight code should be in good shape for Linux 6.1 at least based on the testing information he's been provided for an assortment of laptops.

But for the Linux 6.2 merge window he's aiming to get more of this backlight refactoring completed without regressing Linux laptop support. So he's issued a second call for testing if you have an older / "weird" laptop you'd like to ensure continues seeing working backlight controls under Linux. The testing amounts to capturing various dumps from sysfs, DMI decode output, ACPI dump, and related information for your laptop(s).