Issues Installing NetBSD on a PineBook Pro

[KC9UDX]

I had some spare time today (!) and made a simple script that you might find interesting.

Code:

$ cat ~/s/ModBright

#!/bin/sh

level=`cat ~/.backlightlevel`
level=$(( $level + $1 ))

if [ "$level" -lt "0" ]; then
level=0
fi

if [ "$level" -gt "255" ]; then
level=255
fi

echo $level > ~/.backlightlevel
sudo sysctl -w hw.pwmbacklight0.level=$level

It requires 'sudo' unfortunately. But if you pass a value, it will dim or brighten the backlight. Passing "10" will increase the parameter by 10, passing "-15" will decrease the parameter by 15. I used xbindkeys and bound this script to the Alt comma and Alt period keys:

Code:

$ cat ~/.xbindkeysrc

#Mod4 is the Pine key

"konsole"
Mod4 + F1

"firefox78"
Mod4 + F2

"sh ~/s/ModBright -10"
Alt + comma

"sh ~/s/ModBright 10"
Alt + period

You might prefer to use Mod4 + F1 and Mod4 + F2 (which is Pine + F1 and Pine + F2). As you can see, I did not because I have those in use already. We cannot use Fn + F1 and Fn + F2 because the keyboard firmware returns both keys as the same single key.

I run this as a script at KDE startup, but you could put it in .xinitrc:

Code:

sysctl -n hw.pwmbacklight0.level > ~/.backlightlevel
xbindkeys

Surely there is a better way to do this, but until we get support for whatever the keyboard firmware does, it works. I'm not any kind of Unix guru, and I barely know how to make shell scripts work.