[xubuntu-users] Seeking help: computer wakes to dark screen

[Peter Flynn]

On 01/20/2017 01:44 PM, Joanna Hoyt wrote:
> I just installed 32-bit Xubuntu LTS 16.04 Xenial Xerus on a
> partition of my MacBook Pro 1,2 with a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
> processor and 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. The brightness is fine at
> startup and during use, but after sleep the screen is very dark;
> [...] I've also seen online posts from Xubuntu users with different
> hardware reporting the same problem.

Linux support for hardware-dependent features like backlight,
brightness, sound, video, etc is always going to be less reliable than
under commercial operating systems who can afford to pay manufacturers
to develop drivers to their specifications. It's one of those things you
have to put up with for the other benefits of Linux.

> How do you decide whether to keep trying fixes, reinstall what you
> had before, or try another distro?

I don't think another distro will help any, because they all share the
same codebase. Once you've exhausted all the options, and it still
doesn't work, that's it unless you have the skills to start rewriting
the driver yourself.

> If keeping trying seems indicated: Some fixes start with going into 
> 'system settings' and changing settings in a window I've not yet
> found. I can go into Settings, and thence into Power Manager, but
> that doesn't offer the exact options shown in the fixes. How should I
> access system settings, if they're separate from Settings?

There are many different files in which settings get stored, and
competing display managers use different files, directories and formats.
I'm afraid I can't offer help here, but someone else surely can.

> Also, so far as I kow I don't have a swap partition configured. 

AFAIK Linux cannot operate without a swap partition, and one gets
created for you automatically when you install Linux. In a terminal, type
swapon -s
to show what the partition and size is.

///Peter