Sony Vaio Laptop - Keyboard Backlight - after 12.1 upgrade

English Hardware
1

Have Sony Vaio VPCF1
Keyboard backlight was working in 11.4 (can’t remember if i’d done anything to make it work)
Upgraded to 12.1 - Keyboard Backlight was not working

turn on keyboard backlight

echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight

np doing this - wondering if is config option somewhere?

volume, screen brightness, all seem to work fine still after the upgrade

2

Alright, I just nuked the partition that had the answer so I’m going from memory.

I believe there should also be a kbd_timeout file that you need to set a 1,2, or 3 in which corresponds to different timeout times (10, 30, 45, or something along those lines).

You may also need to modprobe the sony-laptop module.

If all else fails, there is a Vaio kernel out there you can try to install.

3

If bsilvereagle methods did not work out for you, you can try this.
Create a new file in /etc/modprobe.d named sony-laptop.conf adding the following line in it:

options sony-laptop kbd_backlight=2

You can change the number to your taste.

I too have sony vaio, and i will not say it solved the problem for me. I have even no kbd_backlight and kbd_backlight_timeout files in /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/.
ATM the backlight is working for me for only 10 secs and after that it time out (12.1 64bit KDE).
If i do changes to /sys/module/sony_laptop/parameters/kbd_backlight and /sys/module/sony_laptop/parameters/kbd_backlight_timeout, on every reboot the value will goes to the default one which is 0. So no luck for me in any case… 0=10secs i guess.

Just give it a shoot and let us know if it works for you.

4

Thanks for the suggestions here. I have a sony vaio VPCZ1190X. I set 1 to kbd_backlight and kbd_backlight_timeout after which my keyboard backlit starts working.

However when I restart the values are set back to zero to each. Can someone please let me know the right way to change these files so that the values persist?

5

I tried a start script, but somehow its not executed during startup.
when I do : sudo /etc/init.d/…/backlightON start it works
BUT not during startup :frowning:

Here the script which is located in /etc/init.d/backlightON:
and linked in rc5.d folder S13backlightON → …/backlightON

#! /bin/sh

All rights reserved.

Author: ich

/etc/init.d/backlightON

and its symbolic link tS13backlightON

. /etc/rc.status
rc_reset

case “$1” in
start)
echo -n "Backlight of keyboard on "
echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight
;;
stop)
echo -n "Backlight of keyboard off "
echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight
;;

    *)
            echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
            exit 1
            ;;

esac
rc_exit

If somebody could tell me why its not executed
THX a lot

6

Okay for no reason today it works that way