# Turning off Laptop Backlight without using X11 server

## buywithcredit

I want to turn off the laptop backlight for a laptop that is being used as a server. I have seen many solutions that use X11 server to accomplish this task and I do not want to go through the hassle of emerge xorg-x11. I always SSH into the laptop, so I don't have a need for the laptop backlight to be on.

Edit: Anyways, I found vbetool. That does the job. Except I need to SSH in order to turn it on. It'd be nice that if I pressed a key, something would turn the monitor on again. In the standard console, the monitor will blank, but not turn off the backlight. If I press a key, the monitor is no longer in blanking mode. So, if the kernel can control monitor blanking, shouldn't it be able to control during off the backlight and such somewhere?

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## szczerb

I'd try the 'setterm -powerdown 3' setting. Although I have no idea on how to set it automaticaly on boot. Is there a config file for that?

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## DtZ

Can you control your laptop's backlight through /sys interface? On my thinkpad I can play with backlight by using /class/backlight/acpi_video1/brightness.

It's just an idea but if your laptop has some buttons which generate acpi events you colud write a simple scrpit that toggles backlight levels through /sys interface. Then you could instruct acpid to run this script after you press that button.

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