Italiano | English

Good news here too. Since some Linux kernel version, the sony_laptop module has been able to manage natively Vaio’s keyboard backlight, turning it on/off and setting its timeout delay. This is achieved using two controls in

cd /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/

kbd_backlight

Turns on/off the keyboard backlight. Usage:

0. Off
1. On

kbd_backlight_timeout

Sets the timeout delay of the keyboard backlight. Usage:

0. 10 seconds
1. 30 seconds
2. 60 seconds
3. Always on

For example lighting up the keyboard can be done with

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight

Italiano | English

Useful especially to save your battery. First off download this program:

http://code.google.com/p/vaio-f11-linux/issues/detail?id=6#c10

extract and compile it

make && sudo make install

This will install kbd_lit in /usr/local/sbin, which has two options:

• -d Disable backlight
• -e Enable backlight

this command must be run with root privileges (sudo).

Since it’s inconvenient to open a terminal every time, I associated this program to the magnify function keys (F9 and F10), which on my laptop look like this:

if you want this shortcut too, paste this into a terminal:

sudo -s
cd /etc/acpi
wget -c http://dl.dropbox.com/u/737114/vpcs11e7e/keyboard-backlight.tar.gz
tar -xzvf keyboard-backlight.tar.gz
rm keyboard-backlight.tar.gz
service acpid restart

This way Fn+F9 will shut the light off and Fn+F10 will turn it on again.

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Source: http://code.google.com/p/vaio-f11-linux/issues/detail?id=6