Quick Dell laptop test - help required

[Derek Broughton]

Matthew Garrett wrote:

> This is for all of you who have Dell laptops. Firstly, check if you have
> Intel graphics - from a terminal, do
> 
> lspci | grep VGA
> 
> and see if it says Intel. If so, please do the following:
> 
> 1) Press ctrl+alt+f1
> 2) Close the laptop lid. Wait a couple of seconds
> 3) Open the laptop lid. Wait a couple of seconds
> 4) Is the laptop backlight still switched off? If so, please email me
> (mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org) with your model number. 

Yes, on my Inspiron 6000 that's true.

> Please don't email the mailing list.

Why not?  Mailing list traffic should _stay_ on mailing lists.  If you'd
asked for CCs, I might do it (but not if it's one of those "please CC me
because I'm not subscribed" requests, which imo say you have time enough to
bother us, but not time enough to be bothered by us), but I don't believe
in asking questions on lists and then not giving the list the benefit of
the responses.

> 5) Press ctrl+alt+f7 and X should come back.

Not in my experience.  If I open the lid and the light doesn't come on I
will not be able to get it on by switching terminals - even to X.  I have
to either log in from another machine or ctrl-alt-f1 and log in blindly,
then do "vbetool post".  I wonder if ctrl-alt-backspace might do the trick
- which, of course, is only acceptable if you didn't have a running desktop
session.
-- 
derek