Warning

The main keyboard backlight drivers this software provides control to and depends on previously developed at https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard have been brought under https://gitlab.com/tuxedocomputers/development/packages/tuxedo-drivers. While it will still work with the versions documented here, you may prefer to follow a newer setup procedure with the newest drivers. Development of a new version is planned but on hold.

TUXEDO Backlight Control

Minimal Linux distro CLI & UI for TUXEDO / Clevo computers Keyboard Backlight

This utility automates toggling keyboard backlight state for TUXEDO / Clevo computers on Linux. It can toggle the keyboard backlight off, set any modes defined here and set a single or multiple colors in Color (custom) mode. Default available colors are:

Usage

UI

Search for TUXEDO Backlight Control from the Super (Start) menu.

CLI

backlight <command> [<option>]

Usage:
    -h, --help            Display this message

    -v, --version         Display app version

    ui                    Start the TUXEDO Backlight Control UI

    off                   Turn off keyboard backlight

    <mode>                Set the keyboard backlight to <mode>, one of:
                          breathe, cycle, dance, flash, random, tempo, wave

    color  <color>{1,4}   Set the keyboard backlight to a single color, one of:
                          white, silver, gray, yellow, orange, red, maroon, crimson,
                          fuchsia, purple, rose, cyan, turquoise, teal, blue, navy,
                          olive, lime, green, OR any valid color_name=hex_value pairs
                          defined in /etc/tuxedo-backlight-control/colors.conf

                          Alternatively, set the keyboard to 4 distinct colors,
                          in the order: left, center, right, extra. Only regions supported
                          by your keyboard will have effect.

    brightness            Set keyboard backlight brightness from 0-255

Custom Colors

As of 0.5 you can add your own custom colors, by creating a colors.conf file in a directory /etc/tuxedo-backlight-control. The file should have a format like:

my_color1=123456
my_color2=654321

The colors added here will be usable both in the CLI, and appear in the color dropdown in the UI. The values should be valid HEX colors, the keys can only contain alphanumeric characters.

Development of this software is done on Clevo N150-ZU / N151-ZU. Only single color mode is known to work for these the models.

Requirements

Required packages:

• On Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / PopOS : python3, python3-tk & policykit-1.
• On Arch Linux / Manjaro : python, tk, polkit

On Debian you can verify if you have these by doing apt show <package-name>.

Required modules: tuxedo-keyboard
Download it from the repository or git clone as below:

git clone https://github.com/tuxedocomputers/tuxedo-keyboard.git
cd tuxedo-keyboard

Follow the instructions at tuxedo-keyboard under the section "The DKMS route"

Alternative options

On Arch Linux / Manjaro:

You can install the "tuxedo-keyboard" Package from the AUR

On Ubuntu (Linux Mint and Debian are not tested):

You can download and install the TUXEDO Keyboard .deb Package from http://deb.tuxedocomputers.com/ubuntu/pool/main/t/tuxedo-keyboard-dkms/

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Install

Note: You might have to execute some of the commands below with sudo

Debian & derivatives (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, PopOS, ...)

Download and double-click the .deb package from the releases, or run

dpkg -i tuxedo-backlight-control_0.8.0-1_amd64.deb

from the folder where you downloaded it.

Arch Linux / Manjaro

Download the .pkg.tar.xz package from the releases, and run

pacman -U tuxedo-backlight-control-0.8.0-1.pkg.tar.xz

from the folder where you downloaded it.

Note: Although it is not recommended, you can install dpkg on Arch Linux, and install the .deb package there as you would on Debian OS'es.

Alternatively, you can use the AUR Package from Steven Seifried

Manual

git clone https://github.com/webketje/tuxedo-backlight-control.git
cd tuxedo-backlight-control
./pack.sh

In the dist folder you will find distribution packages built for the supported distro's. If none of these packages fits your distribution you can manually paste the contents of the src/ folder in your system root like so:

cd src
cp -r usr /usr
ln -s -f -T /usr/share/tuxedo-backlight-control/backlight.py /usr/local/bin/backlight

Uninstall:

Note: You might have to execute some of the commands below with sudo

Debian:

dpkg -r tuxedo-backlight-control

Arch Linux / Manjaro:

pacman -Rs tuxedo-backlight-control-git

Manual:

rm -rf /usr/share/tuxedo-backlight-control
unlink /usr/local/bin/backlight
unlink /usr/share/doc/tuxedo-backlight-control/copyright
unlink /usr/share/applications/tuxedo-backlight-control.desktop
unlink /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/webketje.tuxedo-backlight-control.policy
unlink /etc/bash_completion.d/backlight

Maintenance

Test locally

The backlight utility can be run directly from the repo root as $PWD/src/usr/share/tuxedo-backlight-control/backlight.py for quick tests

Run pylint

Run bin/pylint

Create a new release

1. Change all references to <version> (readme, python, help)
2. Run bin/pack
3. Create release on GH and attach to generated archives in dist