Linux Lite Forums

Brought a laptop from the dead for a friend.  All is well except the keyboard backlight won't work in Linux Lite.

The keyboard lights when powering up.  Works in the BIOS setup, and as it boots, but goes off as soon as it hits Linux Lite GRUB.  I've tried the Fn+Z combination and it changes nothing.  I've spent a few hours searching online and i've seen nothing definitive.  Some mention turning off ACPI in the BIOS.  They say it makes the keyboard backlight work in Ubuntu, but the function keys and Power Management won't work.  I don't have ACPI settings in the BIOS for this laptop.  But I have set the keyboard backlight to ON instead of 15 second TIMER.

I need help on this one.

For the record, in the Keyboard settings, I don't see a more specific Keyboard Layout than Toshiba Satellite S3000.  I get the same behavior as I do when I just use the System Defaults.  Everything else works except the backlight.

After a little searching I have found that there is "a hotkeys daemon for your Internet/multimedia keyboard in X" that can be found in: Menu>System>Install/Remove Software.  just search for "keyboard backlight" and select "hotkeys".  The discription is as follows:

This program sits at the back and listens for the "special" hotkeys
that you won't normally use on your Internet/Multimedia keyboards.
The buttons perform their intended behaviors, such as volume up and
down, mute the speaker, control the backlight, launch applications, etc.
It has On-screen display (OSD) to show the volume, program that's being
started, etc.

It features an XML-based keycode configuration file format, which
makes it possible to define the hotkeys to launch any programs you
want.

Hope that helps. 

I don't see how to use this for keyboard backlight, even after reading all of this:  http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trus...ontenttoc4

After more searching I was able to find that this is a kernel bug that was first reported back in 2011. 

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32742

@avj,

Yeah, my research led me to a dead end, too.  The user/co-worker who owns the laptop is very pleased otherwise.  It was a laptop that wasn't being used for about 3-4 years because he couldn't get it to show any display.  I brought it back from the dead.  I got everything working the way I would want it if it were my machine...except the backlight.  Considering it was a brick last month, and a very usable and fast machine now with Linux Lite, I'd call it a success...all things considered. 

I really pulled out all the stops.  I even called Toshiba and emailed a question to the Toshiba Japan website.  No dice.  But now I at least know to tell Toshiba Satellite users who are open to Linux that if they have a keyboard backlight, be prepared for it not to work.