BRIGHTNESSCTL(1)
π BRIGHTNESSCTL(1) β the brightnessctl manual, but make it cute π
okay bestie, listen. this is brightnessctl β the little command-line cutie that reads and controls your device brightness. your screen? your keyboard backlight? she's got range. let's go π
β¨ NAME β¨
brightnessctl β read and control device brightness π¦
β¨ SYNOPSIS β¨
brightnessctl [options] [operation] [value...]
that's it. that's the whole shape of it. options first, then the operation, then whatever value you're feeding her. slay π
β¨ OPTIONS β¨
-h,--helpβ prints this help. the "girl just tell me what to do" option π«Ά-l,--listβ lists every device that has brightness controls available. a little roster of your faves β¨-q,--quietβ suppresses output. she's silent, she's mysterious, she's doing it anyway π-p,--pretendβ does not perform write operations. purely a dress rehearsal, no actual changes π₯-m,--machine-readableβ produces machine-readable output. for when you need it parsed, not admired π€-n,--min-value=VALUEβ sets the minimum brightness used when you're working with delta values. defaults to1.-e,--exponent=Kβ changes the percentage scaling curve from linear (the default) to exponential. default exponent is4.
the percentage equation, verbatim, no cap:
% = [VALUE]^[K] * [MAX] * 100^-[K]
the exponential curve may make the adjustments perceptually equal β i.e. it actually feels even to your eyeballs instead of lying to you π
-s,--saveβ saves state in a temporary file. little snapshot, little memory, we love to see it πΈ-r,--restoreβ restores the previously-saved state. she remembers π₯Ί-d,--device=DEVICEβ specify the device name. can be a wildcard, so go feral with it π-c,--class=CLASSβ specify the device class.-v,--versionβ prints the version and exits. mic drop, she's out π
β¨ OPERATIONS β¨
i,infoβ get device info. the tea βg,getβ get the current brightness of the device.m,maxβ get the maximum brightness of the device. her ceiling, her limit, her final form πs,set VALUEβ set the brightness of the device. this is the main character one π
β¨ VALUES β¨
so for the set command you can hand her a VALUE in absolute form or relative form, and as either a plain value or a delta from the current value. the range?? unmatched. here's the receipts:
brightnessctl set 500
sets brightness to 500.
brightnessctl set 50%
sets brightness to 50% of the maximum.
brightnessctl set 50-
subtracts 50 from the current brightness.
brightnessctl set +10
adds 10 to the current brightness.
brightnessctl set 50%-
subtracts 50% of the maximum from the current brightness.
brightnessctl set +10%
adds 10% of the maximum to the current brightness.
see how the + and - are doing the whole personality of the command?? absolute vs relative, percentage vs raw. she contains multitudes π¦
β¨ AUTHORS β¨
maintained by Mykyta Holubakha, who is assisted by other open source contributors π«Ά for more info about brightnessctl development, come through:
https://github.com/Hummer12007/brightnessctl
ngl, don't forget the -p flag exists β if you're just testing a vibe, pretending means no writes actually happen. safety first, bestie π
and that's the whole page, fr fr. this was brightnessctl, from the brightnessctl manual, dated 24th Jan 2018 β yes she's an elder but she's still iconic and she ate π
πΈ bye bestie, go brighten something πβ¨
π¦ where this page comes from
- alpine 3.24: brightnessctl-doc 0.5.1-r9 Β· MIT
- arch rolling: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3 Β· MIT
- debian bookworm: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3 Β· MIT
- debian trixie: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3.1 Β· MIT
- epel 9: brightnessctl 0.5.1-4.el9 Β· MIT
- nixos 26.05: brightnessctl 0.5.1
- nixpkgs unstable: brightnessctl 0.5.1
- opensuse-leap 16.0: brightnessctl 0.5.1-bp160.1.3 Β· MIT
- opensuse-leap 16.0: brightnessctl 0.5.1-bp160.1.3 Β· MIT
- opensuse-leap 16.0: brightnessctl 0.5.1-bp160.1.3 Β· MIT
- opensuse-leap 16.0: brightnessctl 0.5.1-bp160.1.3 Β· MIT
- ubuntu jammy: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3 Β· MIT
- ubuntu noble: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3.1 Β· MIT
- ubuntu resolute: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3.1build1 Β· MIT
- ubuntu stonking: brightnessctl 0.5.1-3.1build1 Β· MIT
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms