prk3 / intel-backlight

A tool for controlling intel_backlight

intel-backlight

This tool lets you change backlight brightness on laptops with intel_backlight. I wrote it, because on my Lenovo E490 laptop xbacklight command fails with No outputs have backlight property message.

intel-backlight uses files in /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight directory to read current brightness and change it to the desired value.

How to install

You'll need Rust toolchain.

cargo build --release

The executable is located at target/release/intel-backlight. You can move or symlink it to a directory with executables, e.g. /usr/local/bin or $HOME/.local/bin, for convenience. Changing backlight brightness requires root privileges. You'll have to call it with sudo or give the executable +s flag, like this:

sudo chown root:root intel-backlight
sudo chmod +s intel-backlight

How to use

Pass a number between 0 and 100 as the first argument to set backlight brightness to that many percent.

intel-backlight 10 # set backlight brightness to 10%
intel-backlight 80 # set backlight brightness to 80%

If you want to increase or decrease the current brightness, prefix the number with - or + symbol.

intel-backlight +10 # increase backlight brightness by 10% of the max value
                    # 0% becomes 10%, 50% becomes 60%, 100% stays at 100%
intel-backlight -10 # decrease backlight brightness by 10% of the max value
                    # 0% stays at 0%, 50% becomes 40%, 100% becomes 90%

Calling the tool with no arguments prints a help message.

License

MIT