I can't control my off-brand external monitor brightness connected from my laptop on w11, but I can just fine on Linux out of the box no fucking around needed
*White magic. It's open, not secretive.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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I though white magic was healing and black was harming?
Then what is a driver?
Turqouise magic.
Blue! It doesn't work anymore if the blue smoke goes out.
Either Linux's built-in display drivers are black magic or microslop is incompetent
Why not both :) ?
I just realized that since switching to cachyos 4 months ago I have never had to install any driver or driver updates (outside of just running the system update).
Even during initial setup I don't think I installed anything driver related.
It's really a step up from Microslop. Last time I installed my W10 I had to prepare all the necessary drivers and collect them on each manufacturers websites.
It is so much more streamlined on Linux.
That's the result of 30 years of hard work and suffering! Windows was always supported by hardware vendors, meaning THEY supplied drivers which you'd then have to install on Windows.
Linux never was, so Linux devs had to write their own drivers for every hardware and put them in the kernel for you.
True
Controlling the brightness of my (non-laptop) monitors from within windows was never a thing for me in all my decades using windows. I instantly gained this power on both my monitors as soon as I jumped ship. Windows truly is utter dogshit.
What really? I guess I'm spoiled by Linux
We really take it for granted most times
Holy shit I didn't even notice this, but you are 100% right. I used to have to fight with the built-in settings on monitors constantly and I haven't pressed a button on any of my monitors except "power" since I switched to Linux...
Monitorian was my goto when dual-booting
I am no expert at all, but I am reminded of what a buttload of drivers are included in the package group linux-firmware. Maybe that's why. 🤔🪛🔧
Yeah maybe, and it's only under 1gb to download, this show how bad and bloated w11 is
Yeah, I only use Windows every now and then in a VM to flash Android devices, because I can't figure out how to use the CLI version of Odin on Linux. 😫 Even then, I use Tiny10 and debloat it with The Ultimate Windows Utility.
When I still had a Samsung phone I used Heimdall, but apparently it was not touched for 5 years, so I'm not sure if it still works for newer phones.
The drivers themselves are included in the kernel as loadable modules. A lot of things don't even require the linux-firmware package.
Ah, that's right. Thanks for the clarification! I only mentioned the package as an example. Personally, I only ever install nvidia-open on my gaming rig, because the nouveau drivers simply don't compete... On my laptop and server, a "blank" Arch install works as is. 😊
Last week windows update stopped my laotop from recognizing external monitors altogether. Had to add nvidia tools and mess with system topology etc.
Meanwhile on Linux it was still fine, and also default on GNOME quick settings had a toggle for keyboard backlight on / off That's a nice touch when somebody thinks of those little things.
Does windows let you control external monitor brightness at all? I don't think ive ever seen the option for external displays on windows.
Windows doesn’t let you do this natively. But you can do this via PowerToys (third-party add-on): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/power-display
It's not third-party -- MS themselves published it. I like it and use it often for work!
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys
DevToys is third-party, but also very good.
Good point! I should have said non-native, not third-party. I also use PowerToys on my Windows machines. I find the tools it contains are very helpful on a daily basis.
It show a grayed out slider on mine
Go to windows updates, click the little “optional updates” text.
Usually weird display stuff is in there.
Only to be told "your system is up to date" 🤣
This is a tangent, but I miss the days of things just working?
Why does my GPU need an entire software suite to function? Why do my keyboard and mouse? My monitor? Why does every piece of hardware need a buggy terrible gui with "features" nobody ever cared about until it was advertised to them? Up until the last 5 years I've never had a monitor not just work out of the box (outside of crt setups with adapters plugged into adapters)
What distro has ddc/ci support out of the box? I've always had to install a DKMS module to get an external monitor to show up in /sys/class/backlight.
Arch + KDE does that
Yeah that's what I'm using
CachyOS (so basically that other user’s arch + kde comment, lol)
Always worked out of the box on gnome fedora for me.
This week I nad to install Wi*dows on my old laptop so I could give it to my dad.
It turns out that for some reason microslop does not include the NVMe drivers for this platform in the installer. Never had this issue when installing Linux on it. Image my confusion when I found out this was the issue.
This week I nad to install Wi*dows on my old laptop so I could give it to my dad.
lol. That brings back memories. I did that once, and then I kept getting asked Windows tech support questions.
So now I don't bother. Linux Mint is more than good enough for my random family use.
Ya, I put mint on a rig for my aunt, didn't even tell her it wasn't windows. Granted all she ever uses is the browser, but she seems happy with it. 10/10
Isn’t this a driver issue?
Don't think so, this monitor doesn't even have a driver to download
Gpu driver.
I used Monitorian when I was using Windows years ago, you can find it in the Microslop Store (if it's still available)
Windows power toys added a thing to control the monitor. It lets you do brightness and contrast like monitorian. But it also gives you changing inputs, changing color temperature, and a few other things.
The message you're seeing is Monitorian, it complained about ddc/ci, I only had to deal with ddc/ci when I was using WM
I had to install a package to make ddc/ci work on Linux, it might just be a Debian thing tho
I have a BenQ EW270Q. I'm experiencing a really odd issue. I'm able to control the display's brightness from GNOME's quick settings, but only with HDR enabled. When I disable HDR, the controls disappear. Any idea why this could be?
Can you enable DDC/CI in the monitors on-screen menus?
If so, and if there aren't drivers available (I can't find drivers when searching MF2208-A), then if you can enable DDC/CI you can use 3rd party tools to control the brightness. Display Dimmer and ClickMonitorDDC are 2 I found on a quick google.
If Linux can control the monitor, then it sounds like a lack of drivers for Windows but the display should still support DDC/CI; 3rd party tools do sometimes still work in this scenario for DDC/CI in Windows.
My Dell monitor's brightness can adjusted on Bazzite Linux out of the box but I've never been able to get this working on Linux Mint, Arch, Debian nor NixOS :/
afaik windows has no native capability to control brightness setting on external displays. an optional driver for the display may be available via windows update which might allow a third-party utility to control the setting directly.
Damn I guess I'm spoiled by Linux