Locked out with a dark screen by a screenlock program, persistent during reboot

1

I need a way to regain access to my keyboard and screen brigthness.

I always invoke my screensaver from a terminal in XMonad with the following command which I have aliased: setxkbmap -option srvrkeys:none && xdotool key super+shift+b [just toggles a menubar] && alock -b none -i none -c blank & cmatrix && xdotool key super+b [restores menubar] & setxkbmap -option ''

However, this time I had decreased the screen brightness level to 0 before I ran the command because I know how to log back in but this time Im not able to log back in for some reason. I have tried restarting my computer which gives me the grub bootloader and then the initialization feedback screen but then the dark screen from before comes back instead of the console login prompt (yes I usually boot just to the console) and the keyboard doesn't respond.

Im running Parabola GNU/Linux with libreboot on an X200 laptop.

freecode

Posted 2016-10-06T13:29:06.697

Reputation: 21

You should be able to boot to live OS, modify configuration file from that OS, then boot back to your OS. – Ramhound – 2016-10-06T13:38:16.087

I have done so but I don't know what configuration file to change. – freecode – 2016-10-06T14:02:15.843

Answers

1

I solved it by creating the file: /etc/udev/rules.d/45-backlight.rules

with the content: ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="acpi_video0", SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", SUBSYSTEMS=="pci", DRIVERS=="i915", ATTR{brightness}="2"

Which gave me a low but sufficient amount of brightness that allowed me to log in from the console login prompt (brightness could be set higher somewhere between 1-15 I think). It would be interesting to know where the brightness setting is stored between reboots though.

freecode

Posted 2016-10-06T13:29:06.697

Reputation: 21

Since it was the brightness setting and not the screenlock that was persistent between reboots another solution would probably have been to blindly enter login credentials upon boot and issue startx, and then the keyboard adjust brightness buttons would have worked from within the x-session. – freecode – 2016-10-06T15:01:10.320

Asked: 2016-10-06T13:29:06.697

Viewed: 59 times

Active: 2016-10-06T14:55:23.183