Strange behavior with backlight hotkeys

[JairunCaloth]

I have a MBP 4,1. When I boot into ubuntu, do the login thing and all that, desktop comes up and all, everything looks pretty good. Except for one thing, backlight hotkeys don't work at all. Audio works fine though. ctrl-alt-bkspace to restart X and bam, everything works perfectly.

I'm wondering if X is getting started before whatever handles the hotkeys ready for it. If so, how can I make X wait for the hotkeys to be ready before it starts.

[hyperboloid]

I take it you just installed Xubuntu 8.10 recently? Have you looked at the Wiki page for your model? You may find some hints there.

[JairunCaloth]

This is not a new install, been useing 8.10 since before release, backlight controls have never been quite right. Sometimes they work perfectly for a while, then they won't work at all for some time. Interestingly, today they worked fine off a fresh boot.

I've been over the wiki articles 100 times, nothing seems to stabilize the behavior.