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Stewart
Asked: 2022-05-16 11:15:56 +0800 CST

Is it possible to control keyboard back-lights in Ubuntu?

  • 772

So I have a custom build laptop with only Ubuntu installed.

During boot-up, the back-lighting for the keyboard comes alive, and shows off the various changing colours it is capable.

keyboard1 keyboard2

I cannot find any way to control or engage with this hardware feature once Ubuntu has loaded.

There are keys on the number pad which appear to be marked with symbols related to back-lighting, but I've never had them work.

number pad

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

keyboard

1 Answers

  1. The problem is not with Ubuntu itself but with bios/uefi and the kernel. The main 2 possible methods seem to work with different brands, make, and models.

    First method change:

    /etc/default/grub

    and alter:

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_os_name=Linux acpi_osi=! 
acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"

    and

    sudo update-grub

    Second method: There is also a module made by Tuxedo Computers that could work (Tuxedo own computers, Tensorbook, Sager; all of these are also custom notebooks). See https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard for details.

    Basically it comes to this. If you do not have dkms first do ...

    sudo apt install dkms

    and ...

    git clone https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard
cd tuxedo-keyboard
make && sudo make dkmsinstall
sudo modprobe tuxedo_keyboard
    • Do not use both at the same time.
    • If any of the 2 works it should activate: Fn /, Fn *, Fn -, Fn +
    • If it does not please comment and I will remove it, or try to find another method.
    • 1