Using a nice big flat screen is a lot of fun with a modern PC, but how do you change the brightness of the screen with the command line? This is easy.
Firstly, find the ID of your display using this command.
4.4 Wed Oct 16 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ xrandr -q | grep " connected" |
This is the output I got from this command.
DVI-D-0 connected primary 1920×1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
Now that the ID is known, setting the brightness is very easy.
4.4 Wed Oct 16 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --brightness 0.9 |
The screen ID is DVI-D-0, this is used to access the screen to change the properties.
Use this as a prank on someone, this will turn the screen upside down.
4.4 Wed Oct 16 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --brightness 0.9 --rotate inverted |
To set a softer red tone to your screen for night time use, this will work fine.
4.4 Wed Oct 16 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --gamma 1.1:0.8:0.7 --brightness 0.55 |
And to set it back to normal, use this example.
4.4 Wed Oct 16 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --gamma 1:1:1 --brightness 0.9 |
These examples show how easy it is to access the properties of your monitor on Linux and change the settings, this is how to set a nice reddish screen for night time use, a bright garish screen is not good late at night, blue light can keep you awake.