# lightsd
`lightsd` is a small daemon to make your ~~(actually, my)~~ ambient
light sensor on your laptop useful in Linux interjection
without using a full desktop environment (or `systemd`). It even works
in a tty!
This service watches the readings from the ambient light sensor and
control the backlight of the screen and keyboard. It also creates a
fifo so that you can adjust relative brightness of the lcd.
It only supports sensors using the industrial I/O bus. It has a generic
class for working with most types of iio devices though.
The project also demostrates how damn stupid a C++ program could look like
(not yet to its maximum extent).
Hopefully it does not yet hog the CPU.
# Warning
WIP. Does not yet do any kind of input sanitation. May segmentation fault
at any time. The author uses Gentoo. _Very_ shitty code.
As this daemon manipulates sysfs, IT ONLY RUNS AS ROOT!
# Dependencies
- CMake
- gcc 8.x or clang 6 with C++17 support
# Building
Just `mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && make`.
# Installing
`sudo make install`. If you are using `OpenRC`, an init script is also installed.
Sorry to `systemd` users but my only computer running `systemd` does not have
iio sensors.
# Documentation
None. The code documents itself.
## fifo usage
- `u [x=5,0`
Sets relative brightness of lcd.
- `r`
Resets relative brightness of lcd, equivalent to `s 0`.
- `f`
Forces an adjustment to be made. You may want to call this when the lid
is being opened in order to turn on the keyboard backlight.
Not implemented:
- `m`
Disables automatic brightness. (\_M\_anual)
Some of the commands (r/s/f) does nothing in manual brightness mode.
- `a`
Enables automatic brightness.
- `i`
Print current status to stdout. Example output:
```
Mode:
ALS value: <%f|-->
Display brightness: %d%% [(+%d%%)]
Keyboard backlight brightness: %d%%
```
The fifo is owned by `root:video` and has permission `0220` so that
everyone in the video group could potentially mess with your brightness.
Surprise!
# Tested on
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 1st gen.
# To-do
- Less segmentation faults
- Less data races
- Input sanitation
- Actual, _real_ logging: not printf'ing to `stdout`.
- More fifo commands: disabling auto adjustment, set absolute brightness etc.
- use iio triggers instead?
- auto orientation using accelerometer?
- hogging cpu and battery?
- ability to embed an email client and to order pizza?