HOWTO: Use the repository on *buntu 12.04 LTS and above

[voria]

• Repository URL: https://launchpad.net/~voria/+archive/ppa
• Instructions:
  • Add the repository to the sources list
    Open a terminal and use the following command:

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    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:voria/ppa

  • Perform a complete system update
    From the terminal, use the following command in order to update all the packages at the latest versions:

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    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

  • Install packages from the repository
    Use your favourite package manager to install the following packages:
    • samsung-tools
      It enables control of devices (bluetooth, webcam, wireless, CPU fan) and the FN keys.
      Please read the NOTES below.
    • samsung-laptop (optional)
      It installs a patched version of the 'samsung-laptop' kernel module, which provides a control interface for samsung-tools.
      Please read the NOTES below.
    • easy-slow-down-manager (optional)
      It installs the 'easy-slow-down-manager' kernel module, which provides a control interface for samsung-tools.
      Please read the NOTES below.
    • samsung-backlight (optional)
      It enables the screen brightness control for laptops that don't have a proper support (mostly with Intel video cards).
      It also disables the samsung-laptop kernel module.
      Please read the NOTES below.
    • phc-intel (optional)
      It installs the 'phc-intel' kernel module, used by samsung-tools for CPU undervolting.
      Keep it mind it only supports a limited range of CPUs, mostly Atom CPUs, so it may not work for you.
      You also need a PHC enabled kernel, since the official Ubuntu one does not allow the use of this kernel module.
      Use the PPA for linux-phc in order to get one.
  • Again, please read the NOTES below.
  • Reboot the system to have all changes applied.
  • Have fun!

FOR NVIDIA USERS:
The backlight control should work by default when using the open source nouveau driver.
Instead, if you use the closed source nvidia driver, follow these instructions (thanks to ChrisPHL):

• Start "NVIDIA X Server Setting" from menu or type in a terminal:

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  /usr/bin/nvidia-settings # [Return]

• Select "X Server Display Configuration" from the left hand menu.
• Push button "Save to X Configuration File".
• Push button "Show preview...".
• Add the line

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      Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"

  to Device section. It should look similar like this:

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  Section "Device"
      Identifier     "Device0"
      Driver         "nvidia"
      VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
      BoardName      "GeForce GT 330M"
      Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
  EndSection

• Uncheck "Merge with existing file".
• Save the file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
• Reboot and check if backlight control works. If so, you're done.
• If not, edit the file '/etc/default/grub' and change the line:

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  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

  to

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  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor"

• Update grub with this command:

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  sudo update-grub

• Reboot and backlight control should work.

NOTES:
The new samsung-tools 2.0 has support for 2 different control interfaces: samsung-laptop and easy-slow-down-manager.
The first one is newer and is officially shipped with the newer linux kernels. Eventually, It will superseed easy-slow-down-manager.
Unfortunately, at the moment it lacks support for a lot of Samsung notebook models and it yet suffers of some annoying bugs.
The samsung-laptop package available on the PPA installs a patched version of the kernel module which fixes some of these bugs but, yet, the situation is pretty much the same. If you face problems with this control interface, you can switch to the old 'easy-slow-down-manager' interface.
To do so, install the easy-slow-down-manager and samsung-backlight packages from the PPA. The 'samsung-laptop' kernel module will be disabled.
These 2 packages provide the same functionalities as in the previous Ubuntu versions, so if they worked for you, they will continue to do so.
You can check the control interface currently in use from the command line, with the command "samsung-tools -i", or through the "Samsung Tools Preferences" configuration dialog.

Another thing needs to be pointed out.
I receive a lot of reports about samsung-tools and the problems with the screen brightness control.
Samsung Tools has no control on screen brightness levels, nor on the behaviour of the Fn-Up and Fn-Down hotkeys used to control brightness.
It just controls the screen backlight (on or off, Fn-F5 hotkey), by using the control interfaces described above.
If brightness control does not work for you, then the problem may be in the kernel driver missing support for your notebook model, may be a bug in gnome-power-manager (if you use Gnome), may be a bug in powerdevil (if you use KDE), and so on.
Please file bug reports appropriately.

[ssadien]

Thanks for your efforts.

[sergwy]

nvidia-bl-dkms is now working with 12.04 kernels. This driver is required to control Samsung RV 520 brighness correctly, please put the driver back to the repo.

[molivera]

Hi. When trying to add the repository to the sources list it says:
Cannot access PPA (https://launchpad.net/api/1.0/~voira/+archive/ppa) to get PPA information, please check your internet connection.

Why is that???

[kolle501]

Works great with:

Samsung RC530 S0C
Ubuntu 12.04
Bumblebee Nvidia Drivers 3.0.1.1

(I followed the steps mentioned under "for Nvidia users" and installed the samsung-brightness-tool; brightness control via FN-keys works like a charm!)

Thanks a lot!

[sootalhzn]

What about Fedora 17. How I can use it ?

thank you !

[Stilllife]

Hi! I have a samsung RV720 with nvidia card and Ubuntu 12 , I followed the istructions and it works but I can only decrease the backlight and when I try to increase my monitor blinks but it doens't increase backlight. Could you please give me a hint on what I can do?

Thanks

[istanbul]

Hello
My computer samsung NP350U2B - samsung tools to error. Helpme please.

samsung-tools-preferences

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ERROR:dbus.proxies:Introspect error on :1.188:/Options: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/samsung-tools-preferences", line 1092, in <module>
    Main()
  File "/usr/bin/samsung-tools-preferences", line 411, in __init__
    hotkey = session.GetBacklightHotkey()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 70, in __call__
    return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 145, in __call__
    **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 651, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name :1.188 was not provided by any .service files

[elnoziya]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks you Voria for your enourmous contributions! I would like to add here some reports about a small issues i had.
I have recently updated to ubuntu 12.04 and installed samsung-tools in my samsung Q45 from 2008 (I guess...). Almost everything worked perfectly, but I have been suffering a minor issue with wireless, which always is OFF on bootup. Samsung-tools-preferences was configured as "last status", so it should be ON on startup as it was in last system run. Finally I hd to configure wireless as "always on" in samsung-tool-preferences and it worked for me, so it is not a problem anymore.
Another minor issue, when enabling the wireless, the notification panel says "Wireless cannot be enabled", anyway it works fine. I don't know if it is related or not with samsung tools.

I could provide more info if required.

Regards!

[palermo6]

Thanks a lot! On ubuntu it works fine on 12.04 and 12.10. But now faced with a problem. Does not work on Linux Mint 13. Please tell me how to make that work brightness. Model: Samsung r-538

[sergwy]

Works like a charm. For nvidia cards additionally install nvidiabl driver from official git repo and follow instructions there.

[dreamkatcha]

Hi,

When I run 'sudo apt-get install samsung-laptop' I get the error:-

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package samsung-laptop

Any ideas would be much appreciated, thanks.

[voria]

'samsung-laptop' is not available and is not needed on ubuntu 12.10, the version shipped with the official ubuntu kernel is working now.

[dreamkatcha]

Thanks for letting me know. I was a bit confused when I was told that the part of the installation that enables the GUI preference pane had failed, yet I was able to use the GUI anyway. That explains it.

The only problem I'm having now is with the sound adjustment buttons - they behave as though I'm keeping them pressed down indefinitely so I either get maximum or muted volume and this prevents manipulation of all menu functions, task bar buttons and so on.

[voria]

Samsung Tools is on the repository for Ubuntu 13.04 now.

Note: 'easy-slow-down-manager' and 'samsung-backlight' packages are not available for Ubuntu 13.04, because I don't really know if the problem with new UEFI devices [1] has been fixed. Better safe than sorry.

If you really need them, you can manually download them from the repository, the packages for Ubuntu 12.10 should work just fine.

[1] - http://www.voria.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1181