Klaus Knopper answers your Linux questions
Ask Klaus
Controlling brightness, forensic mode, and proprietary Broadcom WiFi drivers.
Controlling Brightness
On my laptop, the function key combinations that are supposed to change the display's brightness are not working with Linux. Is special software necessary in order to activate those function keys?
Most manufacturers of notebooks use a non-standard keyboard assignment for brightness, WiFi enable/disable, and so on – "non-standard" meaning that there really isn't much of a standard keycode available for the extra functionality. Proprietary operating systems use "drivers" to map extended keyboard events to certain actions, as is done similarly in most Linux distributions using the ACPI daemon with vendor-specific configuration files in /etc/acpi/events and /etc/acpi/actions provided by packages such as eeepc-acpi-scripts and acpi-support (which contain known mappings for different notebook brands). Finding the correct settings and writing your own scripts for handling events can be a very complex task, but in some cases, you have an easier way to solve this problem.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Epic Games Targets Linux for New Launcher
The Epic Games new launcher is still in preview, but it looks to land on several Linux distributions.
-
Fedora 45 Now Available
The latest iteration of Fedora has arrived with Gnome 51 and KDE Plasma 6.8.
-
Linux 7.4 is "Much Healthier" Thanks to AI
At nearly 42 million lines, Linux 7.4 is the largest merge in the kernel’s history.
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.