Brightness control and shutdown freezes on a Lenovo Legion 5

There are community-maintained Lenovo Legion Linux tools and configuration guides that may help with graphics modes, power management, and brightness. On some NVIDIA setups, adding the appropriate NVIDIA brightness parameter to the GRUB kernel command line can restore brightness control. After changing GRUB settings, regenerate the configuration and reboot. Make sure you understand whether the system is currently using the NVIDIA GPU or the integrated AMD graphics, since the correct fix can depend on which GPU controls the display.

First, check Linux hardware compatibility for your exact Legion model and verify which graphics driver is active. Legion laptops can need model-specific settings, especially with hybrid AMD/NVIDIA graphics. A Lenovo Legion Linux configuration guide may also provide useful checklists. The Fedora shutdown issue sounds more like a kernel, firmware, or graphics-driver problem than a desktop-environment issue. Ubuntu may be worth trying again, since its brightness problem could have been caused by a kernel backlight regression that was fixed in a newer kernel release.

You could also test an Arch-based installation with the proprietary NVIDIA driver selected during setup, since some users find that combination works well on Legion hardware. An X11 desktop may be worth testing too, as NVIDIA support can still be more predictable there than under some Wayland configurations. However, I’d try the newer Ubuntu kernel and verify the graphics and firmware setup before changing distributions again.