Keyboard backlight for G51Jx

**allwitchesdance** · April 24th, 2010

Greeting all,
Everyone who wants to get keyboard back-light functioning under Ubuntu 9.10 listen up. Attached you will find an archive with a patched asus-laptop module which supports keyboard backlight. You will need to:

Uncompress the tarball
Run build.sh to build the module
Remove the old asus_laptop module (sudo rmmod asus_laptop)
Insert the newly build module (sudo insmod asus_laptop.ko)

As root run:
echo NUMBER > /sys/class/leds/asus\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness, where number is between 0 and 3 depending in the desired brightness. This tar-ball also includes kdbd.c which simplifies the process. Simply build it using gcc -o kdbl kdbd.c and the run as root:

Code:

./kdbl up

or

Code:

./kdbl down

depending on if you are turning the brightness up or down. I tested this code on ubuntu x64 9.10, but with 10.04 around the corner I hope this will work out of the box. I will provide limited support for this code, welcome to open source

Peace, Tusk.

**exodus** · July 16th, 2010

thanks buddy..

excellent fix.. works on my asus laptop like a charm...

g51jx-a1 to be precise and i'm running ubuntu 9.10 64 bit...

**kthakore** · August 24th, 2010

Is there a way I can add this to a init.d script? Also will this be added to the official asus-laptop kernel module up stream?

**scifi1901** · September 6th, 2010

worked great on G73JH running 10.4 x64. thanks!

**Berbe** · October 5th, 2010

Hello everyone,

I own an Asus G51J Laptop and I had the exactly same problem as you. I solved it since a few hours and I wanted to share the solution.

I have managed to reassociate the original keys to higher/lower the keyboard brightness (Fn+F3 to lower it & Fn+F4 to higher it).

Download the joined archive and uncompress it

Move both the "acpi/events/keyboard_brightness*" files into the /etc/acpi/events/ directory.

Code:

sudo mv acpi/events/keyboard_brightnessup /etc/acpi/events/

Code:

sudo  mv acpi/events/keyboard_brightnessdown /etc/acpi/events/

Move both the "acpi/key_brightness*.sh" files into the /etc/acpi/ directory.

Code:

sudo mv acpi/key_brightnessup.sh  /etc/acpi/

Code:

sudo mv acpi/key_brightnessdown.sh  /etc/acpi/

Apply chmod 755 to both the /etc/acpi/key_brightness*.sh

Code:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/key_brightnessup.sh

Code:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/key_brightnessdown.sh

Reload the acpid module
Code:
```
sudo reload acpid
```

Job done!
You have now recovered the usual behavior of the Fn+F3 & Fn+F4 buttons!

If you wish to understand acpi interruptions, I followed the LaptopSpecialKeys from the Ubuntu Documentation.

If you wish to go even further and manage keyboard backlighting depending on the power state, I recommend you to read that article, made for power savings with Ubuntu on a Mac Pro (pay attention to the 99-savings script).
Some customization is mandatory, but you'll be able to automatically activate/deactivate keyboard illumination when on battery or not, from the even start of Ubuntu.

Have fun!

**bupe** · October 12th, 2010

Great job Berbe! I can confirm that his works on G73JH running 10.10 x64, however there aren't as many states as in Windows 7 - brightness up has two states (lighter and stronger) while brightness down always disables the backlight - does not step back to the previous level. If I recall correctly then the Windows version has 3 steps of lighting levels and pressing Fn+F3 and Fn+F4 always goes up and down only one level.

Anyway this is still much better than not being able to control the backlight at all!

Many thanks for your contribution!

Cheers,
Peter

**adn258** · October 22nd, 2010

Originally Posted by Berbe

Hello everyone,

I own an Asus G51J Laptop and I had the exactly same problem as you. I solved it since a few hours and I wanted to share the solution.

I have managed to reassociate the original keys to higher/lower the keyboard brightness (Fn+F3 to lower it & Fn+F4 to higher it).

Download the joined archive and uncompress it

Move both the "acpi/events/keyboard_brightness*" files into the /etc/acpi/events/ directory.

Code:

sudo mv acpi/events/keyboard_brightnessup /etc/acpi/events/

Code:

sudo  mv acpi/events/keyboard_brightnessdown /etc/acpi/events/

Move both the "acpi/key_brightness*.sh" files into the /etc/acpi/ directory.

Code:

sudo mv acpi/key_brightnessup.sh  /etc/acpi/

Code:

sudo mv acpi/key_brightnessdown.sh  /etc/acpi/

Apply chmod 755 to both the /etc/acpi/key_brightness*.sh

Code:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/key_brightnessup.sh

Code:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/key_brightnessdown.sh

Reload the acpid module
Code:
```
sudo reload acpid
```

Job done!
You have now recovered the usual behavior of the Fn+F3 & Fn+F4 buttons!

If you wish to understand acpi interruptions, I followed the LaptopSpecialKeys from the Ubuntu Documentation.

If you wish to go even further and manage keyboard backlighting depending on the power state, I recommend you to read that article, made for power savings with Ubuntu on a Mac Pro (pay attention to the 99-savings script).
Some customization is mandatory, but you'll be able to automatically activate/deactivate keyboard illumination when on battery or not, from the even start of Ubuntu.

Have fun!

I just wanted to say thank you very much simple as moving over these terminal commands. Awesome

G51J is a great laptop I am using one as well.

Peace Had to say thanks!

**ramrom** · February 24th, 2011

thanks a lot... works like a charm...

**piloto** · March 8th, 2011

Hello guys, sorry for my poor english.

I fixed my problem with this https://launchpad.net/asus-keyboard-backlight

The best part is that you can install the fix like a package with few clicks.
It is working very well in my asus G60Jx with Ubuntu 10.10 64 bits.

I hope I've helped somebody.