How to Adjust screen brightness on Dell Inspiron Mini 1010?

Question

I just bought a used Dell Inspiron Mini 1010...and when I hit the brightness buttons (F4 and F5) it does nothing. Is there a different way to adjust brightness, or how do I get these buttons to work! I have tried hitting it while holding down the FN key as well, and it does nothing, please help!

Answer 1

As you boot, at the grub menu, type e to edit the boot options.

On the linux (kernel) line, near quiet splash add nolapic

quiet splash nolapic

If that works, we can add it to the default boot options. Edit /etc/default/grub

# command line
sudo -e /etc/default/grub

#graphical
gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Change the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to read

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nolapic"

Save your edit, then update grub

sudo update-grub

If nolapic does not work, try acpi_backlight=vendor