Arch Linux

John5788

Member

From: 127.0.0.1

Registered: 2012-08-05

Posts: 17

Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had a solution for adjusting the keyboard backlight on a Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook. I discovered that I can change the brightness manually by setting 0-8 here: /sys/devices/platform/samsung/leds/samsung::kbd_backlight/brightness

However, this seems to require root access so I am unsure the best solution to map my FN keys to incrementing/decrementing this setting between 0-8.

I've tried installing samsung-tools from AUR, but it does not give me control over keyboard backlight settings, just the display backlight.

alienated_humour

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2011-07-28

Posts: 23

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

I use a series 7 so I had the same problem. I use a dirty workaround that chowns the file at login and then I can increase/decrease brightness whenever I want. Not currently sure of any other way to do this effectively.

#!/bin/bash
cat /sys/devices/platform/samsung/leds/samsung\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness | awk -F: '{print $1+1}' > /sys/devices/platform/samsung/leds/samsung\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness

raudi

Member

Registered: 2012-08-28

Posts: 3

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

I have it working.
Here an example for lowering the brightness:
Create a script with the following content and make it executable:

#!/bin/bash
k_lvl="/sys/class/leds/samsung::kbd_backlight/brightness"
value="$(cat $k_lvl)"
let value--
echo $value > $k_lvl

Install and configure Sudo if you don't have it already.
Now disable the password for the script in the sudoers file. Here is explained how: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Su … le_Entries
Now just bind "sudo script.sh" to the keycombo you want or execute it manually. Obviously you have to replace script.sh with the path to your script.
If you have security concerns, you should also make the script read only because otherwise every user that has write access to the script can gain root access. You could also add increasing the brighness, enabling silent mode, toggle wifi and toggle battery saving to the script. There are already working scripts available. Just google for them.

gColossus

Member

From: over a giant double rainbow

Registered: 2012-05-02

Posts: 7

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

*Bump*

I am using samsung series 9 and also installed samsung-tools from AUR. However, I can't find samsung under platform. My platform is as follow:

[user@colossus-arch platform]$ ls -lah
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 alarmtimer
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 i8042
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 iTCO_wdt
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 pcspkr
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 Oct 27 23:38 power
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 regulatory.0
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root    0 Oct 27 23:35 serial8250
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4.0K Oct 27 23:35 uevent

Any idea?

Also, I am having machine check exception with any kernel 3.4 + (http://i.imgur.com/GGX6t.jpg), any of you guys having the same problem?

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

I'm having the same issue... can't find samsung under platforms... it was working and suddenly stopped, now I can't get it back.
Any clue guys?

thank you!!

Last edited by Condomitti (2013-08-02 05:12:34)

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Is the module present in /lib/modules/3.10.x-x-ARCH?

What happens if you modprobe samsung_laptop?

---

Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Apparently it loads the modules. When I sudo modprobe samsung_laptop there's no error message. But still no /samsung under platforms. Very weird.
I also tried building the kernel myself, leaving "samsung_laptop" as built-in instead of modular but also no success.

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

I have buit a custom kernel with samsung-laptop module as built-in instead of module, but still the keyboard backlight doesn't work.
Any clues?

kabum

Member

Registered: 2011-12-05

Posts: 6

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Same here with NP900X3E. Any hints?

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Kabum this seems to be an issue caused by UEFI. Actually not uefi itself. As I've read, the samsung_laptop module (which is responsible for some functionalities in our laptops - like keyboard backlight) is said to brick the laptop for some reason, when the system is booted in uefi mode and the solution for that is to disallow kernel to load that module.
The lack of the module is the reason we can't get some funcs properly working, got it?

Last edited by Condomitti (2013-08-28 20:39:38)

CREED0R

Member

Registered: 2012-11-24

Posts: 16

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Hi,

I also got Series 9. Most of the Fn Keys don't work even after I fixed up the udev rules and for the keyboard backlight I too have to live with a homebrew script.
I do use the current linux-git kernel from the AUR though and that at least fixed some problems like the touchpad being recognized as an Elantech Touchpad triggering the evdev driver instead of the synpatics driver. So I can heavily recommend updating to the newest kernel available!

Anyhow, have you guys ever checked the cpu freqs? Even if I set my performance settings to "Silent" my cpu freq doesn't go lower than 1.3GHz, which is kinda annoying since it should go down to 800MHz in idle...

If any of you has an idea on that I'd be glad!

-CREED0R

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Hi CREED0R

I'm using the mainline kernel too. Though I'm building it myself instead of using AUR pack (actually I didn't know there was package for that... I'll take a look from now on   and that solves some issues indeed.
Could you share the script you use to make backlight keyboard work?

Cheers,
Condomitti.

CREED0R

Member

Registered: 2012-11-24

Posts: 16

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

I,m using the same approach as posted by raudi, which basically means echo'ing into /sys/class/leds/samsung::kbd_backlight/brightness .
I do however have the samsung_laptop module loaded at boot, don't know if you got that working by now. The module got loaded 'out-of-the-box', so I didn't had to go through any trouble for that.

I still however don't get, how the 'samsung-tools' thing is supposed to work. I'm changing the fan settings and check the result with

watch -n 1.0 grep \"cpu MHz\" /proc/cpuinfo

but every core is above at least 1 GHz all the time...

-CREED0R

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Ohh I understand. Mine are above 1GHZ as well.

The backlight keyboard used to work out of the box too, but after some upgrade the samsung::kbd folder disappeared.
Are you using UEFI boot?

CREED0R

Member

Registered: 2012-11-24

Posts: 16

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Nope. I disabled everything I could find that had anything to do with secure boot or UEFI.

Apollo Costa

Member

From: German

Registered: 2010-01-27

Posts: 27

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Hi,

has anyone setup the FN-Keys for the backlight? If I press the keys, dmesg reports the following:

F9:
[ 2233.884951] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x97 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 2233.884958] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e017 <keycode>' to make it known.
F10:
[ 2234.151689] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x96 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 2234.151696] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e016 <keycode>' to make it known.

So i set the keycodes to backlight up/down.

setkeycodes e016 237
setkeycodes e017 238

My problem is now that F10 "backlight up" has the same action as F12 "wlan on/off", but F12 is set to keycode "action 3". Has anyone fix this issue?

*edit*

Ok I cloud fix it... The values in  xmodmap has an offset of 8.

xmodmap -pke | less

For example

keycode 237 = XF86KbdBrightnessDown NoSymbol XF86KbdBrightnessDown

has to be set as 229.

setkeycodes e017 229

On my list are only three things open:

1. The mute led dosen't work
2. Skype cannot use my webcam
3. UEFI samsung-module

*edit*
1. The mute led dosen't work
3. UEFI samsung-module

Has someone a working "mute-led"?

Last edited by Apollo Costa (2014-01-28 16:47:59)

SSTC

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2009-06-23

Posts: 15

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Do anyone know if someone is working on fixing this problem, or do people just accept that the keyboard backlight does not work??

Condomitti

Member

Registered: 2013-05-21

Posts: 25

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

Do anyone know if someone is working on fixing this problem, or do people just accept that the keyboard backlight does not work??

SSTC, I got it working after I completely disabled UEFI. You'll probably have to re-install Arch.  By booting without UEFI mode samsung_laptop module gets loaded and you'll have keyboard backlight and other functions enabled.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Condomitti.

tomcho

Member

Registered: 2020-01-26

Posts: 5

Re: Samsung Series 9 Keyboard Backlight

It is now 2020. Does anyone know if any solution exists that doesn't involve completely disabling UEFI?