Apple Studio Display Linux Driver Published To Control The Backlight

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Apple Studio Display Linux Driver Published To Control The Backlight

An independent developer has posted an open-source Linux driver for review in order to handle the Apple Studio Display backlight control under Linux. The Apple Studio Display uses a Thunderbolt (DP) interface for display but lacks any hardware controls. Thus a USB interface is used by the monitor for controlling attributes like the display backlight brightness...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Apple-Studio-Display-Linux-Drv

[Joe2021]

*Sigh* I was always looking forward to be able to control my external monitor settings via a well defined and standardized interface. Contrast, Brightness, Color Temp... you name it!

Why is it so f*c*i*g complicated to implement this? I mean, we have standards like HDMI or Displayport, even FreeSync etc., but are still not able to control the very basic settings? Hell, it is not like this is some form of rocket science. The vast majority of notebooks implement this, and even common displays have something like a control channel to handshake, like setting resolution and refresh rate etc pp. Why can't there be some additional datagram types for setting contrast, brightness, etc.? I am talking about being part of Displayport- or HDMI-Standard, no vendor specific stuff! Working out of the box with some basic linux CLI tools..

This would be a huge boost in ergonomics!

[cl333r]

*Sigh* (...)

That's one of the problems with capitalism, you have competing corporations that seek to screw each other and the customer short of being punished for it, eventually the state steps in and "standardizes" things, usually late and in a shitty way [1]. With communism the opposite is true - you have a one standard for all from the get go, the product usually lasts very long (because they don't do it for money so they don't need planned obsolescence) but the quality and progress tanks.

[1] Even how EU handled cookies - they demanded that websites don't store cookies or that they ask for your permission. The end result - they didn't solve any problem with this regulation, pretty much all websites just put a banner "either accept all cookies or fuck off".

[Joe2021]

That's one of the problems with capitalism, you have competing corporations that seek to screw each other and the customer short of being punished for it, ...

Well, yes, I know. But it is not impossible. For that reason there exist interest groups, where competing corps come together to agree on standards. This actually works, as you can see with HDMI or DP, which works at least quite acceptable. They even adopted VRR recently, though the idea of setting brightness/contrast is like 80 years older...
There are other examples, like SATA or Ethernet etc..

[m132]

Why can't there be some additional datagram types for setting contrast, brightness, etc.? I am talking about being part of Displayport- or HDMI-Standard, no vendor specific stuff!

you mean DDC/CI? there's ddccontrol that lets you do just that + out-of-tree linux backlight driver that makes compatible monitors show up as backlight devices in the same fashion acpi backlight is exposed to the userspace, making it fully compatible with e.g., gnome's brightness hotkeys and quick settings sliders. most monitor vendors implement this instead of going their own way

[lucrus]

most monitor vendors implement this instead of going their own way

Here we go again: Apple doing things their own way only to lock you in.

[Quackdoc]

Gonna have a lot of people complaining about apple being proprietary etc. but just remember DDC is janky as hell and CEC isn't all that much better. also don't blame capitalism, as far as I can tell no one really has so much as proposed a better solution. there is no trying to screw anyone over here the current standards are crap and we need a new one.

[ssokolow]

Here we go again: Apple doing things their own way only to lock you in.

I think it's more that this is the company where the visual design team have veto power over the engineering team (that's where those fragile not-a-strain-relief things come from), and, when combining that with being, the only surviving artifact of the era where every manufacturer was their own vertically-integrated island, from CPU ISA to firmware to BIOS to OS to ecosystem, they lean more heavily into "we don't want to compromise our vision in the name of some design-by-committee standard" than their competitors.

[ssokolow]

[1] Even how EU handled cookies - they demanded that websites don't store cookies or that they ask for your permission. The end result - they didn't solve any problem with this regulation, pretty much all websites just put a banner "either accept all cookies or fuck off".

Which is why the GDPR imposed requirements that can't be "I Agree"'d away, prompting one big American publishing conglomerate to block European visitors from the websites for the local newspapers they run (I think the Chicago Tribune was one of them.) because they felt it'd cost more money letting users choose to not have their data sold than they'd make back from European visitors.

[Vistaus]

Which is why the GDPR imposed requirements that can't be "I Agree"'d away, prompting one big American publishing conglomerate to block European visitors from the websites for the local newspapers they run (I think the Chicago Tribune was one of them.) because they felt it'd cost more money letting users choose to not have their data sold than they'd make back from European visitors.

I'm European and I hardly ever come across an American site, including local news sites, that block me.