KeyLight

A set of subprojects to lit up your unsupported keyboard on Linux!

Warning

This project has been archived, it has been replaced by this gist.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • History
  • How it works
  • Subprojects
    • KeyLight for X11
    • KeyLight for TTY
    • KeyLight Packages
• Installation
  • Distro-specific packages
  • AppImage binaries
  • From sources
• Contributing
• License

Introduction

History

The story of KeyLight started when I bought a seemingly Chinese keyboard from E-commerce, plugging it on my computer, then realizing that pressing it's designated backlight key doesn't even function properly.

And when I booted up to Windows, I can clearly see that the keyboard lits up using it's designated key but it does not in Linux.

And so, this project was made to provide a better support!

How it works

Instead of providing keyboard drivers, or screw up your system, KeyLight uses the exposed hierarchy hardware made by the Linux kernel in the filesystem.

But for keylight-x11, however, it doesn't even use the filesystem! Instead, it relies on Xlib APIs (that's why it's written in C) to interact with the X server.

As for keylight-wayland, I haven't found a solution that can interact with Wayland protocols or compositors, but you can use the tty script as an alternative instead.

Subprojects

KeyLight has nothing. But sub-projects! They were divided because it could cause some errors that will conflict other parts of the project.

KeyLight for X11

The common way to use KeyLight, it is written in C language with the Xlib libraries.

KeyLight for TTY

Alternative way to use KeyLight, it is written in Bash script with some shenanigan stuff.

KeyLight Packages

The source of Distro-specific packages are put in this branch.

Installation

Distro-specific packages

I haven't put any packages to the internet, so basically building the package would be the most preferred way for now:

• Arch Linux

$ git clone https://github.com/spiroth/keylight.git
$ cd keylight/pacman
$ makepkg -si # or makepkg -si --repackage if not built correctly

if you have time, please contribute packaging scripts for other distributions, i only use arch ;)

AppImage binaries

As of now, KeyLight doesn't have support for AppImage, but will be added soon.

From sources

If you don't care about package management, you can clone the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/spiroth/keylight.git
$ cd keylight

Then refer to X11 branch README file or TTY branch README file.

Contributing

Join us by forking off the repository, and make changes to the branches, and then submit a pull request.

Issues are welcomed.

License

This project is licensed under The Unlicense license.