redstonemason
Welcome to GhostBSD, Mark. It is great to see someone with deep UNIX roots exploring GhostBSD. Your observations and feedback are appreciated.
Function Key Brightness Control (ThinkPad T450s)
If the screen brightness function keys are not working, here are a few ways to troubleshoot and potentially fix it.
(1) Check for ACPI Backlight Control
Run:
sysctl -a | grep acpi_video
If you see something like hw.acpi.video.lcd0.brightness, you can adjust the brightness manually with:
sudo sysctl hw.acpi.video.lcd0.brightness=80
(2) Test Key Events
Some ThinkPad function keys do not emit proper keycodes. You can test this with:
sudo evemu-record
Press the brightness keys and see if any events are detected. If not, you may need to write a small devd rule or ACPI handler.
(3) Optional: xbacklight
Sometimes xbacklight will work:
sudo pkg install xbacklight
xbacklight -inc 10
If it fails, your driver likely does not support it. This is common with older Intel chipsets.
Touchpad Issues
GhostBSD uses libinput for touchpad support.
Step 1: Identify the device
xinput list
Look for a line like:
↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
Step 2: Inspect its properties
xinput list-props <device-id>
Step 3: Add a local Xorg config
Create a file at /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-touchpad.conf with the following content:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad"
Driver "libinput"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
Option "Tapping" "on"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "true"
EndSection
Restart the X session or reboot to apply the changes.
Optional Diagnostics
If you still have issues, you can provide output from the following commands:
pciconf -lv
devmatch -v
dmesg
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
