Linux Display Brightness

If you use the beloved X11, you might occasionally encounter difficulties adjusting the screen brightness. This is especially true if your system has a discrete GPU. To overcome this issue, here are two simple Bash commands designed to gradually increase and decrease the screen brightness: increaseBrightness(){ xrandr --output eDP-1-1 --brightness $(bc

Mar 3, 2025 - 02:36

If you use the beloved X11, you might occasionally encounter difficulties adjusting the screen brightness. This is especially true if your system has a discrete GPU.

To overcome this issue, here are two simple Bash commands designed to gradually increase and decrease the screen brightness:

increaseBrightness(){
        xrandr --output eDP-1-1 --brightness $(bc <<< $(xrandr --verbose | grep -m 1 -i Brightness | cut -f2 -d ' ')+0.01 );
}

decreaseBrightness(){
        xrandr --output eDP-1-1 --brightness $(bc <<< $(xrandr --verbose | grep -m 1 -i Brightness | cut -f2 -d ' ')-0.01 );
}

Use xrandr to find the Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) connection, if needed.

You can also create aliases to make your life easier:

# Increase Brightness
alias increaseBrightness="increaseBrightness"
# Decrease Brightness
alias decreaseBrightness="decreaseBrightness"