- Defenestration And Deforestation
Not conspiracy theories, theories about economic entropy. - Ubuntu on Let's Note (Defenestration And Deforestation, Part 2)
Discussion of partial success swimming against economic entropy
Update on the status of this notebook PC:
I called the recycling company again, and, after initially arranging to return this thing, I asked again, and this time they said they'd send me the AC Adapter and I could send the bad one back. And if it didn't work out I could still send it back later.
I said a quick prayer and weighed the options again, and decided this machine is usable enough for me, and I need a true PC, so I asked them to send the adapter.
Then I did a search on the web for others who might have had screen control and audio control issues with this particular model, and found several posts:
This one gave me the methods to connect the keyboard function controls, so that I can hear audio without plugging in external speakers or a headset, and so that I can turn the bright back up when the dying/dead AC adapter forces the backlight off.
https://gtrt7.com/blog/linux/ubuntu1710-on-letsnote
These two are earlier posts that essentially confirm the information in the later post:
https://qiita.com/PopularHero/items/5fda32b42f772061eb2c
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/sounds-issues-realtek-hda-14-2-a-4175596546/
The nitty-gritty is that Ubuntu has not had the appropriate settings information in the common install code. I should talk with the devs and get them to fix that. In the meantime, here are the settings:
** For the screen controls,
In
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.confadd
Section "Device"
Identifier "card0"
Driver "intel"
Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection
The file probably won't exist, so, if you do this, you will probably make it new, and this will probably be the only thing in it.
And then in
/etc/default/grubchange the line
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi="
(with no line breaks, regardless of how your browser shows the line).
Then run update-grub with the usual root privileges:
sudo update-grubWhen you reboot, the screen controls should take effect, and, if you have a bad AC adapter, you will be able to restore the screen brightness, maybe after logging in to a user.
(But, if you have the bad AC adapter, you really do have to fix the adapter or get a new one if you plan to continue using the PC. The wires inside the insulator will eventually break, like they have on this one, and then you will be running on fumes, like I am right now.)
Two points to take note of. One, this does not fix the behavior of the notebook when a failing AC adapter is plugged in. It will force the brightness on the internal display to zero, and keep firing the phantom button pushes until you unplug the thing.
Which means that you will need to unplug the adapter, and then wait until the filled button-push buffer empties and the on-screen indicator goes away. Then you can manually hit the brightness-up button so you can see what's on the internal screen again.
(Just between you and me, I consider this a poorly-thought-out feature in Panasonic's ergonomic design. Yeah, maybe it saves you from burning your notebook PC out, but must people will just think the thing has died. And, instead of taking it to someone who knows to replace the AC adapter, will just throw the poor thing away and add to the landfills and worker poisoning in poor 3rd-world communities.)
** For the audio controls
In the file
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conffind the following lines (headphone element):
[Element Headphone]
switch = off
volume = off
and change the volume line, and add two override lines, as follows:
[Element Headphone]
switch = off
volume = merge
override-map.1 = all
override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
Then find the following lines (speaker element):
[Element Speaker] required-any = any
switch = mute
volume = merge
override-map.1 = all
override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
and change only the volume line, as follows:
[Element Speaker] required-any = any
switch = mute
volume = off
override-map.1 = all
override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
Having done that, you and I can just restart the pulseaudio daemon by the usual methods, whether we do it by the cool way with service commands or the hard way by rebooting the computer.
And now we can hear the computer beep at us, or listen to youtube in monaural.
[JMR201911160031 Update:
Rather than make another post to confirm that the replacement adapter does fix the brightness problem, I'll add that information here. However, the adapter does not fix the brightness controls disconnect problem, so, until the patches make their way into the Debian and Ubuntu distributions, the information on this page remains relevant.
Let's figure out what kind of pics to take:
Booting up, AC adapter plugged in, pilot showing green, and no complaints about the adapter. (No internal screen because BIOS has the external screen selected at higher priority than the internal screen for the boot process.)
Made it all the way to the Ubuntu login screen without the phantom screen brightness control button activity, and the screen is appropriately bright.
Brightness control keyboard controls work, and no phantom presses pushing the brightness down, and you can see I was not eating my nightly yogghurt with chopsticks.
Logged in, nicely bright screen, and you can see I had a gforth session going in a virtual terminal window while playing with musescore, showing my typically distracted mental states when I should be sleeping.
One less notebook PC going to the landfills this month, I think.
]
[JMR202203201420 Update:
I added more audio stuff (Jack, etc.) and discovered that the audio settings got reverted.
]
