Installing Debian Squeeze on this notebook is really simple and a lot of stuff are ready out of the box.

Installation

[*] Graphical desktop environment
[*] Laptop Computer

Configure hardware

Brightness not working out of the box, but applet show at Fn+ArrowUp/Down press and it seems change scale they scale. It look like key combination is recognized by system but it doesn't change hardware settings. Other Fn-keys combinations (in exception volume, sleep, numlock) not work at all.

To make them working install easy-slow-down-manager package and compile samsung-tools: 

#> aptitude install linux-headers-`uname -r`
#> dpkg -i easy-slow-down-manager-dkms_x.x.x_all.deb
#> aptitude install xbindkeys dbus-python rfkill gettext
#> tar xzf samsung-tools-x.x.x.tar.gz
#> cd  samsung-tools-x.x.x
#> make
#> make install

if easy-slow-down-manager have problem during compilation and brightness control still don't work after RESTART, use my solution described bellow. I have found that changes of brightness level is notificated by $>cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness and have change when Fn+ArrowUp/Down pressed. More over using command #>setpci -H1 -s 00:02.0 F4.B=<val> screen brightness have changed. Using that information I created simple script, which run at boot time, continuously monitoring brightness level and switch it on hardware. Script creating is described bellow:

1.Create script using your favorite editor 

#>nano /etc/init.d/backlight.sh

2.Script should look like this one: 

   1 #! /bin/sh
   2 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
   3 # Provides:          backlight
   4 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
   5 # Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
   6 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
   7 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
   8 # Short-Description: Enable backlight change using Fn+ArrowUp/Down
   9 # Description:       Enable backlight change using special keys (Fn+ArrowUp/Down) on Samsung X360 with Debian 6.0
  10 ### END INIT INFO
  11 
  12 # Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system
  13 case "$1" in
  14  start)
  15     echo "Starting script backlight "
  16 
  17 # Initialization value of backlight
  18        b=-1
  19        # Maxmial range of backlight
  20        bmax=`cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness`
  21        # PCI device on which to operate
  22        DEVICE=00:02.0
  23        # Loop for detect change of backlight level
  24        while true
  25        do
  26            ab=`cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness`
  27            if [ "$b" != "$ab" ]; then
  28                    b=$ab
  29                    var1=$(echo "scale=0; 5+((94 * $ab)/$bmax)" | bc)
  30                    setpci -s $DEVICE F4.B=$var1
  31            fi
  32            sleep 1;
  33    done
  34     ;;
  35  stop)
  36     echo "Stopping script backlight"
  37     exit 1
  38     ;;
  39  *)
  40     echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/backlight {start|stop}"
  41     exit 1
  42     ;;
  43 esac
  44 exit 0

3.then change permission for this script 

#>chmod 755 /etc/init.d/backlight.sh

4.at end run automatic boot script configuration and restart notebook 

#>insserv backlight.sh
#>reboot

after RESTART brightness control should work.

System Summary

# uname -a
Linux X360 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem #1 SMP Mon Jan 16 16:42:05 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux

Detailed information about X360 hardware can be found in attached file cpuinfo, lspci, lsusb .

CategoryDebianOn