After a recent update of my Fedora on my Asus X401a the brightness control has stopped working. This issue most probably occurs on others laptop brands as well. All other controls such as volume, wifi on/off etc works fine. It seems that the issue is related either to kernel or intel drivers itself. I had recently updated intel firmware but the problem still persist. I have found a solution installing additional package and bind the key to it. Here is how to do it:
The example below is for Fedora using Cinnamon. If you use different Linux distribution please follow your package manager command to install xbacklight and bind your keys.
1. We install package called xbacklight. Open a terminal and type:
sudo yum install xbacklight
Alternatively you can search for it in yum extender and install it.
2. After the package is installed we go to:
Settings – Keyboard and click on “Keyboard shortcuts” and select Custom Shortcuts
3. Now we click on “Add custom shortcut and type what is on the image below. You can change the value for whatever you like but I use 3 as default.
Now all you need to do is to bind the keys to control brightness. You won’t be able to use Fn keys are they are reserved by default. Instead I use Ctrl-F5 for brightness down, and Ctrl-F6 for brightness up. You can choose whatever you want.
That’s it. You can enjoy the latest kernel without the brightness issue.
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PCMarc