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AFAIK KDE is not a display manager.
But if your desktop goes completely dark when tuning the light slider all the way down, you wouldn't be able to see anything, and how then would you turn it up again? If you don't have an alternative way to regulate than the slider KDE provides.
Seems like a decent precaution to me, if you really want it all black there are other ways, like turning off your monitor, or just use powersaving, or use a black screensaver. Alternatively you can make an app in a few seconds in for instance Lazarus, that goes full screen black. And would be easy to close again when you want the picture back.
The brightness on a TV or monitor doesn't go to all black either. IDK if it's a coincidence, but my monitor adjustment, and adjustment in KDE look identical when I have one at 100% and the other all the way down.
KDE is not a display manager
KDE is sometimes still synonymous with KDE Plasma, although the standard display manager for Plasma is now SDDM. So maybe they are talking about SDDM. Although I have a suspicion that this is nothing to do with SDDM and is instead a Plasma behavior.
The display manager is separate from KDE/Plasma, and can easily be changed to something else.
KDE is not a DM it's a DE.
KDE is an organisation, if we're being pedantic
Historically KDE is a desktop environment.
The meaning of words are ultimately defined by how they are used. Like Hoover is a vacuum cleaner, even though originally it was a specific brand of vacuum cleaner.
The KDE organization can decide they want to call their desktop environment Lolita Doll. I will never call it that. It is and always were KDE.
For the organization to call itself KDE is stupid, because the DE in KDE stands for desktop Environment.
So the organization is calling itself a desktop environment, which IMO is moronic.
But if your desktop goes completely dark when tuning the light slider all the way down, you wouldn't be able to see anything, and how then would you turn it up again?
I did it in school computer class once with display controls, the controls were affected by display settings, so when I set it to 0 brightness and 0 contrast and left the menu, there was no way to tell what are you doing.
The IT person used a neighbouring monitor to navigate the menu and replicate all the actions on a dim monitor, they were a bit pissed but I guess they also saw it as at least a bit funny
its not KDE, its something else. i have many laptops, all run KDE. Two of them go black, the rest only very very dim.
Does the Display Manager control the brightness? I thought the Desktop Environment would. But what you're saying, is that SDDM doesn't go fully black when brightness is set to 0%, but other display managers do? TIL!
Þe DE may provide controls, but it doesn't do þe brightness itself. Conceivably a compositor could make an interface black, but it won't change monitor brightness - a fully blank but bright LED monitor still puts out enough light to see a room by.
Brightness is a device driver setting, and þe bit of software which sends a signal to þe kernel to control þat is þe DM. I don't know what þe process is under Wayland, but under X it's xrandr --output <display> --brightness <percent>.
thanks for the explanation. I always get confused between what does what between the display manager, login manager, and compositor.
Is my understanding correct though that SDDM has nothing to do with the behvior OP is observing?
Right; it's X. And it's a good point: I said "Display Manager" and þat's incorrect. It's X11 doing it, and X is a Display Server. Under Wayland, it'd be Wayland I'd guess, also serving as a display server. Good catch!
this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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