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How to Save screen brightness settings in Ubuntu 13.10

Last updated: October 23, 2013

save ubuntu backlight settings

As your may know, every time Ubuntu boots up you get the maximum level of screen brightness on laptop. Here’s a way to save your brightness by adding a startup script which will automatically adjust screen brightness when Ubuntu boots up.

Tutorial Objectives:

  • Save your screen brightness in Ubuntu 13.10
  • Enjoy!

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below:

cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness

It outputs the maximum level of your laptop backlight. Mine is 9. The minimum is 0.

Run command below to edit the /etc/rc.local file, which is a script executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

Add following before the last line. Change 0 to the brightness level as you want (from 0 to the max)

echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

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    11 responses to How to Save screen brightness settings in Ubuntu 13.10

    1. ciro November 2, 2013 at 9:36 am

      thanks, it works :)

    2. ch January 8, 2014 at 8:38 am

      No such file or directory: cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness

      Please advice to here and notify my email. thanks

    3. Mr. White January 24, 2014 at 9:47 am

      # echo 100 > /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/nvidia_backlight/brightness

      Note: Must be with root user, sudo does not work.
      Mackbook Pro [Mid 2009] [Nvidia 9400 – 256MB] [Ubuntu 13.10]

      • Mario February 7, 2014 at 4:13 pm

        If your user is not root you may do once in a terminal:

        sudo chmod 777 /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/nvidia_backlight/brightness

        after that the line in rc.local should work.

        Good luck!

    4. salang January 31, 2014 at 2:37 am

      Thanks, Ji m, it works perfectly.

    5. suananda March 11, 2014 at 2:22 pm

      Thanks, it works in 12.04

    6. frozonecom May 2, 2014 at 2:03 pm

      This worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04! Thanks man!~

    7. karim June 2, 2014 at 4:20 pm

      Thanks, Ji m, it works, i was looking for that for a long time.

    8. ron July 12, 2014 at 11:54 pm

      It worked on asus x55A with ubuntu 12.04.
      Thanks!

    9. CD August 20, 2014 at 1:06 pm

      I must have something set up wrong in my Ubuntu 14.04. It didn’t work for me.

    10. LinK December 27, 2014 at 11:04 pm

      is it same for the keyboard backlight ?
      echo ‘0’ > /sys/class/leds/asus\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness