Toshiba A665 Laptop -- Illuminated Backlit Keyboard

[flbiggs]

I installed Lucid on my new laptop, a Toshiba A665. Everything seems to work very will right out of the box. The only very minor issue I have run into is that I cannot figure out how to get the illuminated backlit keyboard to work. It works fine under the native windows installation,and works fine through the Grub bootloader selection menu. However, a few seconds after the laptop starts to install Ubuntu, the backlighting turns off. The keyboard button (Fn-Z) does not turn it back on. It is not the end of the world, but I kind of like the feature. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

[BritishEmperor]

Hello !!

Check this out. It's aimed at Macbook Pro but I reckon you might be abled to get some info out of this. It's got some details regarding control of keyboard backlit LEDs through the use of an ambient light sensor, but if you ignore that it might be of some use.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...Lucid#Keyboard

Hope this helps.

[k5wlf]

Hi all,

I'm having the same problem. Mine's not a dual-boot install, Ubuntu 10.04 only. The KB lights up during POST, but goes off as soon as Linux starts to load. Nothing will bring it back. I went into the BIOS and set the KB lighting to 'Always On', but that was no help either.

Like the OP said, it's not a deal-breaker, but I was counting on being able to use the feature in dim/no light situations. All info appreciated.

TNX,
ldb
K5WLF

[Aeling]

Bump, same problem. Satellite A660, backlight works up until it starts booting. Fn-Z doesn't work. Any ideas?

[piotao]

bump, the same for me

Toshiba A665-3DV, lit is on when in BIOS, Windows, disabled while ubuntu10.10

[al_agha20]

hey same problem here i have Toshiba satellite a665-s6067
when the system starts all the light goes off and when i put two fingers on the touch pad the mouse starts to jump crazy from place to place !!! any one can help ?

[twopointfour]

Bump. I just got a brand new Toshiba Satellite M645-S4080, but the backlit keyboard isn't working at all in Ubuntu. It works fine in Windows. I've searched the forums but can't find anything. Any help?

[Deecie]

Same problem on my A660. There's nothing that seems appropriate anywhere in /sys. Seems like it might be a driver thing.

[Cigarmaster01]

Anybody knows what would be the best online place to buy a Toshiba A665? Any suggestion will be highly appreciate it.
Cheers!

[twopointfour]

I've been scouring the internet and it doesn't seem like anyone has gotten these Toshiba backlit keyboards working in linux yet. It might be helpful to identify what the actual hardware we have in common is. You can get a list of attached PCI cards by opening a terminal and typing lspci, and you can get a list of USB devices attached by typing lsusb.

When I don't have any USB devices plugged in and type lsusb, here's my list:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0930:0214 Toshiba Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04f2:b1d6 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

It's just a guess, but I think that "04f2:b1d6 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd" is this backlit keyboard. None of my PCI hardware seems to fit it, and when I search for Chicony I find this badly-designed company website: http://www.chicony.com.tw/ -- it appears that they make mobile keyboards. Does everyone else have that piece of hardware when they do an lsusb?