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@nwjlyons
Last active August 2, 2026 17:27
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Turn Mac Book Pro backlit keyboard on and off under linux
# First su in as root
sudo su
# Then cd to backlight directory
cd /sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight/
# Turn the backlight on
cat max_brightness > brightness
# Set to zero to turn off the backlight
echo 0 > brightness
@JohnSeals

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Works perfect on my old MacBook Pro!

@TheOnly3aq

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Works perfectly on my 2017 MacBook Pro running Kali Linux, thanks!

@jaraddowning

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I'm still not having any luck, running Fedora 41 with KDE. At least I have a place to start investigation after seeing this post.

@matymad

matymad commented Mar 10, 2025

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It worked perfectly in my case but I had to change the last part of the second command:
cd /sys/class/leds/spi::kbd_backlight

@bry1599

bry1599 commented Nov 8, 2025

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Great help, just tested on MX Linux fluxbox on a MacBook Air 6,1!

@gapf2010

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Using /sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight/ works on my macbook pro 2011 under slackware 15.0

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