Install Brightness Controller Utility in Ubuntu 16.04 & Higher

Last updated: May 30, 2017

brightness controller

Brightness Controller is a simple open-source utility to control brightness, RGB, and color temperature of your displays in Linux.

It allows you to change the brightness to a better degree of control, ranging from 1% to 100%! It should be mentioned that it changes the present brightness value set via hardware control of your monitor. For example, if you set your Monitor’s brightness to 50% using hardware buttons, then that 50% will be the 100% value in Brightness controller.

Brightness Controller is developed with Python2 and Pyside. It supports an arbitrary number of displays!

Install Brightness Controller via PPA:

For all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 17.04, and the next Ubuntu 17.10, the utility is available via the PPA repository.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T. Run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/brightness-controller

Type in your password (no visual feedback) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. Then check updates and install the utility:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install brightness-controller

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb package from HERE.

Uninstall:

To remove the utility, simply run command:

sudo apt-get remove brightness-controller && sudo apt-get autoremove

To remove the PPA, go to system settings -> Software & Updates -> Other Software tab.

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12 responses to Install Brightness Controller Utility in Ubuntu 16.04 & Higher

  1. Thanks for sharing this with the community, Ji m! This is actually one of the programs I’ve missed most for more than a year. When I upgraded to 16.04, I was sad to see this program was no longer in the repos. I couldn’t find a way to install it at that time, but now it’s up and running again!

  2. Thanks for sharing, it works on my old Acer Aspire 5738 with Ubuntu 16.04 and it is the only one way to reduce the brightness without need to double restart.

  3. for me i use b.c. on a thin client with elementary os . it is the only app which gives rest to my eyes , so many thanks !

  4. Thanks very much

  5. Thanks a lot my brother!

  6. Thanks , it helped a lot

  7. Hello there,

    I’ve got some issues, when i move the cursor the ap works and i can change what i want but just for few second…
    then the screen refresh to its original state.
    Same issue with Brightness controller simple.
    Any idea to fix it ?

    • I had the same problem. It was because flux was running at the same time. If you disable flux (or some other program that controls brightness), you can run brightness controller and it will work

  8. It worked for me on ubuntu 16.04 , Thanks a lot.

  9. It works for me (Samsung RV720) but; After suspend the maximum settable brightness is much lower. After boot the max brightness returns.

  10. it doesn’t work. it installs but the brigfhtness level has no effect.
    also I have 3 displays and not only 2

  11. Thanks , it helped a lot