How to make brightness hotkey work on AMD Renoir laptops

Table of contents

• Instructions for Manjaro
• Instructions for other distros

Instructions for Manjaro

1. Clone desired Manjaro kernel (here v5.6)

$ git clone https://gitlab.manjaro.org/packages/core/linux56

2. Add brightness patch to PKGBUILD

Patch, can be found in the repository.

Put the patch file in linux56 folder. Open PKGBUILD, and add 'brightness.patch'on a new line at line 71, right before the ")".

Git diff:

# '0012-bootsplash.patch'
! '0013-bootsplash.patch'
+ 'brightness.patch')
# sha256sums=(

At line 226, add a new line and paste this:

msg "Add brightness patch"
patch -Np1 -i "${srcdir}/brightness.patch"

Git diff:

# patch -Np1 -i "${srcdir}/vfs-ino.patch"
+
+ msg "Add brightness patch"
+ patch -Np1 -i "${srcdir}/brightness.patch"
#
# if [ "${CARCH}" = "x86_64" ]; then

Be careful to indentation!

Save.

3. Retrieve SHA256 sums

$ makepkg -g

Makepkg will download build sources, like Linux kernel.

Copy lines from the output, from sha256sums=( to the very last ). Paste them into PKGBUILD, replacing the previous sha256sums array (lines 73-115)

4. Apply patch

$ makepkg -o

5. Prepare modules

$ cd src/linux-5.6/
$ make modules_prepare

6. Compile DRM module

$ make -j$(nproc) M=drivers/gpu/drm modules

7. Install DRM module into temporary folder (there will be SSL errors, ignore them)

$ mkdir /tmp/staging/
$ make M=drivers/gpu/drm INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/tmp/staging modules_install

8. Replace original driver

$ modprobe amdgpu
$ modprobe drm
# cp -r /tmp/staging/lib/modules/5.6.18-1-MANJARO/extra/* /lib/modules/5.6.18-1-MANJARO/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/

⚠️ Your path may not be 5.6.18-1-MANJARO as it depends on the Manjaro kernel version you chose ⚠️

9. Reboot

Instructions for other distros

You can try to apply the patch to vanilla Linux kernel. If your distro uses a customized kernel, you'd better use it as distros developers add their own patches over vanilla. If you succeed to make brightness work on other distros, you can create an issue and I'll add your instructions to this README.