This notebook (Asus G55VW) formerly had Arch on it and the latest KDE. What I liked about it is that KDE battery applet had control over the keyboard backlight in the latest version.
I recently installed openSUSE 13.1 on it and updated to the latest KDE (current) and the battery applet doesn’t control the keyboard backlight.
Is there a way to enable this? I even deleted the KDE4 config thinking it might be a part of KDE current on openSUSE. Any ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
First ensure that you install **acpid **and gawk packages.
For your reference read this link on linlap.com http://www.linlap.com/asus_g55vw
Try this script first:
Another very helpful script can be found on the Archwiki site: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Asus_G55VW#keyboard_backlight_script
Another script can be found here:
Try this link to for a script on this blog: http://keramida.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/controlling-the-keyboard-backlight-from-cli/
In the script edit the lines that contain **awk **change it to gawk. The gawk package is awk except that it is gnu-awk.
You can experiment with the echo command using numbers “0 - 9” echo 1 /sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight
Good Luck!
Thanks for the reply and info.
That’s the thing. It’s supposed to work in KDE 4.11 and it did in Arch. I updated KDE thinking that was going to help. I alos deleted my kde prefs and it didnt help. The battery widget is supposed to have keyboard brightness control.
Before I go diving into scripts, is there another config fie I should delete that retained from openSUSE vanilla install?
No. Firstly. I would ensure that xev (tests your keyboard key events), acpid (ACPI daemon) are installed including gawk (used for scripting).
Next, Navigate to Configure Desktop ->Input Devices ->Keyboard ->Hardware tab.
To the right of Keyboard model, click on the drop-down arrow and select Asus Laptop. Click on the Apply button to confirm your keyboard changes.
You may have to log out and log in.
Test lighting up the keyboard using konsole or xterm. Use the echo command using numbers “0” through 3. Where “0” is off. The max is “3”.
**
Example:**
echo 0 /sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight
echo 3 /sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight
This should work. You can add the echo commands to Configure Desktop ->Shortcuts and Gestures.
NOTE: Please disregard the links about downloading the asus-wmi.c file for patching the kernel. The comments are from 2012 and the newer kernels have already been patched.
No good. Don’t worry about it man. It occurred to me that my Arch intstall was using a newer kernel and that might have been the reason.
Or perhaps the next update to openSUSE and/or KDE will do it.
I really appreciate you taking the time to help though.
Thanks,
Xen.
You are welcome. If the echo doesn’t work it’s most likely the kernel. I know that openSUSE is very laptop friendly. Usually what works on Arch or Fedora will work on openSUSE.
Try kernel 3.15x right here: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/
When updating to kernel 3.15.x update mkinitrd from the same repository.
Good Luck!