Keyboard backlight keeps going on in Ubuntu

16.04 LTS
I have just installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on my Dell Latitude
E6540 and my keyboard backlight is keeps going on
after some time even after I switch them off using the
shortcut keys (Fn+->).
up vote Thanks in advance for any help.
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dell 16.04 keyboard-backlight
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asked Apr 27 at
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edited Apr 29 at
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Bhammarker
Filbuntu
Rahul
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i don't know exactly if it was the update to 16.04 - but
yesterday i noticed that my keyboard backlight
stopped working - it will not light up :-( Stefan Krger
May 9 at 19:29
2
hm got it to work again: first allow normal user to write
to file: sudo chmod a+w
/sys/devices/platform/delllaptop/leds/dell\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness
than set brightness to other value than 0 (0..9 are
valid for me) echo 9 >
/sys/devices/platform/delllaptop/leds/dell\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness
Stefan Krger May 9 at 20:11
Same happens to me (started recently) on Ubuntu
14.04.5. Bach Aug 29 at 8:49
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2 Answers

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echo 2 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/dell-laptop/leds/dell\:\:kbd_backlight/brigh

up Worked for me I have a new 2in1 Inspiron 7568.

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edited Sep 10 at
answered Jun 9 at
dow
7:26
15:48
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David Foerster
kleeman7
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This sets the light to level 2. Turning the light off can be done by
echoing 0 into this file. But anyway - this does not answer the ques
posted here. Bach Aug 29 at 8:48

for thinkpad the directory is:

/sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/leds/tpacpi::kbd_bac
ht but I can't figure out what is triggering the backlight to turn on a
the time Jonathan Aug 29 at 18:34
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dow
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Just purchased a 2016 Dell XPS13-9350. Wiped off Windows 10, with
immense joy by the way, and installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and the
Cinnamon desktop. This is a sweet laptop combo.

The default setting is to dim the keyboard back light after 10 seconds o
no key press. This was driving me absolutely crazy because I fly a lot
and want the back light to stay on longer.
The file /sys/devices/platform/delllaptop/leds/dell\:\:kbd_backlight/stop_timeout contains the
back light timeout value.
Answer 3 (above) did not work for me because the echo command did
not work, even as root. Instead I did the following:
sudo nano /sys/devices/platform/dell-laptop/leds/dell\:\:kbd_backlight/stop_timeout

change the 10s on line-1 to 300s (Without quotes). This will change the
timeout to 5 minutes. Change it to whatever you wish.
Save the file (Ctrl-O, Enter, Ctrl-X).

Hope this helps someone as frustrated with this as I was.

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edited Sep 10 at
4:35
Anwar
36.5k1294171

answered Sep 9 at
22:35
Sopwith
1

If sudo nano FILE works, there's no reason why echo ... > FILE
shouldn't work from a root shell. You probably ran sudo echo ...
> FILE instead. See askubuntu.com/questions/230476/. As such,
your answer doesn't offer any improvement of the other answer.
David Foerster Sep 10 at 7:23