Written in C, aims to be a minimalist and low-level solution that is simple to use and simple to code, following the UNIX "DOTADIW" philosophy. With this program the backlighting mode can be set to:
- An auto mode, so the backlight turns on as you type and turns off by timeout.
- An always on mode, for pretty dark environments such as midnight.
- An always off mode, for daytime and/or to save battery.
As it is a command-line program, it can be easily incorporated into other kinds of projects. You can use it the simple way through a terminal; bind it to a particular key of your preference; use it in scripts, cronjobs or timers; turn on/off the backlight depending on the time of the day, and under many other conditions. See Examples of use.
This project is a WIP, at this stage only works on VAIO laptops. Please see Contributing if you want to know how to have your laptop supported.
Usage: kblight [ -a | -o | -f | -s ]
Options:
-a Toggle between auto mode and always off mode. Default if no arguments.
-o Set always on mode.
-f Set always off mode.
-s Print the actual active mode to stdout.
Remember you need to use sudo with -a, -o and -f options. Also note that options are mutually exclusive.
Clone this repository and change directory to the source tree:
$ git clone https://github.com/macydnah/kblight
$ cd kblight
Then:
$ make
$ sudo make install
To uninstall:
$ sudo make uninstall
The default prefix for install/uninstall is /usr/local, you may change it to fit your needs editing the PREFIX variable inside the Makefile.
Thank you for investing your time in contributing to this project 🥳🤙! Any contribution you make will be appreciated.
At this moment we will be focusing on supporting laptops that have it's driver documentation present in the Linux kernel source tree.
See CONTRIBUTING for more details.
kblight is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0
[username@hostname ~]$ sudo kblight -a
[username@hostname ~]$ kblight -s
Actual active mode is: auto
It's possible to execute kblight at the easiness of pressing a key —much more comfortable than typing commands—.
For this example, it's assumed that you're using i3-wm as your window manager, if you're not, please refer to your window manager or desktop environment documentation.
As a prerequisite, configure your system to run sudo kblight without the need to enter sudo password.
Now make i3 execute it upon pressing a specific key —or key combination— adding something like these lines to your i3 config file (replace EXAMPLE_KEY to a key of your preference):
bindsym EXAMPLE_KEY exec --no-startup-id "sudo kblight"
bindsym Shift+EXAMPLE_KEY exec --no-startup-id "sudo kblight -o"
bindsym EXAMPLE_KEY+EXAMPLE_KEY exec --no-startup-id "sudo kblight -f"
If you would want some desktop notification, you could add something like this:
bindsym EXAMPLE_KEY\
exec --no-startup-id "kblight",\
exec --no-startup-id notify-send -e -t 1444 --icon=input-keyboard "Keyboard light" "$(kblight -s)"
This way you can toggle kblight auto mode and get a notification like this at the same time:
In this example, auto mode is set between 18 hours 'til 07 hours of the next day.
Add the following to your login shell profile, depending on the shell you're using, this file might be ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.zsh_profile, among others:
# Turn off kbd_backlight if it's daytime or let them on if nighttime
if [ 10#$(date +%H) -gt 10#07 && 10#$(date +%H) -lt 18 ] ;
then kblight -f ; kblight -f ;
else kblight -f ; kblight -a ;
fi
Disclaimer: Be aware that this process can be potentially dangerous if doing it wrong. Also remember that if you try this example it's at your own, so please do your own research and make sure you understand what you're doing before attempt it.
This is only necessary if you need to execute kblight in a way you can't —or don't want to— enter the sudo password at prompt (e.g. if you want to bind kblight to a keyboard shortcut).
First edit the /etc/sudoers file, this file is very sensible to syntax, so be careful and edit this file with visudo only:
[username@hostname ~]$ sudo -i
[sudo] password for username:
[root@hostnamme ~]# EDITOR=nano visudo
Then add this line to the end of the file —manually typing it if you want to be on the safe side— replacing user_name with your REAL username:
user_name ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/kblight
Save the changes and close the editor. Now you're able to run sudo kblight with no need to enter sudo password.
ACPI Support — The Linux Kernel firmware guide
ACPI Custom Control Method — The Linux Kernel firmware guide
Linux kernel Documentation — laptops
Sudo Example Entries - ArchWiki
sysfs - _The_ filesystem for exporting kernel objects — The Linux Kernel documentation