Ubuntu

How do I turn the backlight keyboard on?

Asked by Marcelo Ruiz

Hi,

I have a Toshiba M640 Laptop that comes with a backlight keyboard (and hybrid graphic card intel/nvidia).
I can't find a way to make it work under Ubuntu Lucid (even when I set the backlight keyboard to be on all the time in the BIOS, as soon as Ubuntu starts loading the backlight turns off and I can't turn it on again).
The keyboard has a shorcut for turning it on (Fn + Z) but that is also not working. I read that Ubuntu has some problems with the Fn keys... so I know I might not be able to fix that... but I still need to use the backlight keyboard!
Is there any way to turn it on/off from the command line? Do I need to install a package to make it work? I've been reading topics regarding this but they mostly apply to Macs and other brands.
Thanks!

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

If you run:

xev

Does the combination generate an event?

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Marcelo Ruiz (marcelo-javier-ruiz-yahoo) said : 		#2

Nope, Fn + Z does not generate any events.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

As suggested there
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1533744

you could test if these suggestions also work on Toshiba and maybe there is a Toshiba related file in
/sys/devices/platform/.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro6-2/Lucid#Keyboard%20backlight%20without%20pommed

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Marcelo Ruiz (marcelo-javier-ruiz-yahoo) said : 		#4

Thanks for your answer.

under /sys/devices/platform I have the following folders:

dock.0
eisa.0
Fixed MDIO bus.0
i8042
pcspkr
power
serial8250

and the file:

uevent

inside those folders I cound not find anything that seemed like a keyboard's properties file.

under sys/class/leds I have a symlink to a folder named:

mmc0::

I tried this command:

echo 255 | sudo tee -a /sys/class/leds/mmc0::kbd_backlight/brightness

but I get: "No such file or directory"

I have two backlight folders:

/sys/class/backlight
containing 2 folders for each graphic card:

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Marcelo Ruiz (marcelo-javier-ruiz-yahoo) said : 		#5

   acpivideo0
   acpivideo1

and the other:

/sys/devices/virtual

with the same folders for each graphic card, but nothing related to the keyboard backlight...

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