Bash script workaround for intel backlight problems

Hi all,
I have LXDE with kernel 2.6.30, xf86-video-intel-newest (2.8 rc) on my Samsung NC10, and like many people I have been unable to change the backlight settings in X with kms turned on.
I have tried the various solutions on the forum and none of them work for me, so here are two little bash scripts that use the setpci command to change the backlight.
Note 1: I have a little file .backlight in my home dir that I store the backlight setting because I don't know how to read the value back from the pci address. So if you use this script you need to do this first:
echo FF > ~/.backlight
Note 2: These scripts also requre bc from extra to do the hex conversion & maths.
sudo pacman -Sy bc
It's only 240 K in size, but if you are trying to keep the number of installed packages low, then you won't like this
Here is the package details from pacman:
Name : bc
Version : 1.06-5
URL : None
Licenses : GPL
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : readline
Optional Deps : None
Required By : None
Conflicts With : bc-readline
Replaces : bc-readline
Installed Size : 240.00 K
Packager : Allan McRae <[email protected]>
Architecture : i686
Build Date : Sat 02 Aug 2008 14:18:04 IST
Install Date : Thu 25 Jun 2009 16:06:53 IST
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Description : An arbitrary precision calculator language
bc /usr/
bc /usr/bin/
bc /usr/bin/bc
bc /usr/bin/dc
bc /usr/share/
bc /usr/share/info/
bc /usr/share/info/bc.info
bc /usr/share/info/dc.info
bc /usr/share/man/
bc /usr/share/man/man1/
bc /usr/share/man/man1/bc.1.gz
bc /usr/share/man/man1/dc.1.gz
You also need to know the address of you graphics card:
lspci | grep Display
For me this returns:
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
This is needed for this command in the scripts:
sudo setpci -s 00:02.1 F4.B=$var3
Note the 00:02.1 is the address for my laptop screen, 00:02.0 is the address for the vga out controller for me.
Increase backlight:
#!/bin/bash
var1=`cat ~/.backlight`
var2=`echo "16 i $var1 F + p"|dc`
if (( ( "$var2" \> "-1") && ( "$var2" \< "256" ) ));
then
var3=`echo "10 i 16 o $var2 p"|dc`
echo $var3 > ~/.backlight
sudo setpci -s 00:02.1 F4.B=$var3
fi
Decrease backlight:
#!/bin/bash
var1=`cat ~/.backlight`
var2=`echo "16 i $var1 F - p"|dc`
if (( ( "$var2" \> "-1") && ( "$var2" \< "256" ) ));
then
var3=`echo "10 i 16 o $var2 p"|dc`
echo $var3 > ~/.backlight
sudo setpci -s 00:02.1 F4.B=$var3
fi
Obviously someone else can write a much smarter/better set of scripts than me, but I hope is can be of use for someone!
Edit:Here are my openbox bindings for the scripts:
<keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessUp">
<action name="Execute">
<command>~/bin/blightu.sh</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessDown">
<action name="Execute">
<command>~/bin/blightd.sh</command>
</action>
</keybind>
Last edited by makimaki (2009-07-11 14:26:08)

FYI: The new xf86-video-intel (2.9) has just been released:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.fre … xorg/40733
According to the release announcement, the new driver fixes the backlight issue with KMS:
* Add support for BACKLIGHT property when using kernel modesetting
(KMS). This allows backlight adjustment with programs such as
"xbacklight -set <percentage>" or "xrandr --set BACKLIGHT <value>".

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