Keyboard Backlight Not Working With FN Keys on System76 Serval WS

What’s the output of lsmod | grep -i system76 and ls -l /sys/class/leds/?

[hunter@servalws ~]$ lsmod | grep -i system76
[hunter@servalws ~]$ ls -l /sys/class/leds/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::capslock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::capslock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::numlock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::numlock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::scrolllock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::scrolllock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 phy0-led -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.3/0000:02:00.2/0000:03:01.0/0000:05:00.0/leds/phy0-led

Please run sudo modprobe system76 and then run those two commands again.

When running sudo modprobe system76

I get this

modprobe: FATAL: Module system76 not found in directory /lib/modules/5.8.11-1-MANJARO

But when I used system76_acpi there was no complaint

Did this finish without errors?

Yes, it completed successfully

Please run ls -l /usr/src/system76-1.0.9/.

total 60
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   138 Oct 18 11:39 dkms.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   176 Oct 18 11:39 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2834 Oct 18 11:39 system76_ap-led.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10027 Oct 18 11:39 system76.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7694 Oct 18 11:39 system76_hwmon.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4750 Oct 18 11:39 system76_input.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8433 Oct 18 11:39 system76_kb-led.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4602 Oct 18 11:39 system76_nv_hda.c

Please run dkms status.

It is an empty output for me

Run

sudo dkms add system76/1.0.9
sudo dkms build system76/1.0.9
sudo dkms install system76/1.0.9

When running sudo dkms build system76/1.0.9 I get:

Your kernel headers for kernel 5.8.11-1-MANJARO cannot be found at
/usr/lib/modules/5.8.11-1-MANJARO/build or /usr/lib/modules/5.8.11-1-MANJARO/source.
You can use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located.

Please run pacman -Qqs linux.

alsa-lib
alsa-utils
android-udev
archlinux-appstream-data
archlinux-keyring
avahi
cpupower
ecryptfs-utils
efibootmgr
filesystem
grub-theme-manjaro
hdparm
illyria-wallpaper
iptables
keyutils
kmod
lib32-alsa-lib
lib32-keyutils
lib32-libva
lib32-libxshmfence
lib32-util-linux
libaio
libiec61883
libimobiledevice
libraw1394
liburing
libva
libxshmfence
linux-api-headers
linux-firmware
linux58
linux58-nvidia-440xx
lirc
man-pages
manjaro-base-skel
manjaro-browser-settings
manjaro-firmware
manjaro-hotfixes
manjaro-kde-settings
manjaro-settings-manager
manjaro-settings-manager-kcm
manjaro-settings-manager-knotifier
manjaro-system
mdadm
mhwd
mhwd-db
ndctl
pacman-mirrors
squashfs-tools
stoken
tlp
usb_modeswitch
util-linux
util-linux-libs
v4l-utils

Run

sudo pacman -Syu linux58-headers
sudo dkms remove system76/1.0.9
pamac remove system76-dkms
pamac build system76-dkms
sudo modprobe system76
1 Like

Awesome thanks that worked :smiley:

What’s the output of ls -l /sys/class/leds/ now?

total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::capslock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::capslock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::numlock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::numlock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 input5::scrolllock -> ../../devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input5/input5::scrolllock
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 11:45 phy0-led -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.3/0000:02:00.2/0000:03:01.0/0000:05:00.0/leds/phy0-led
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 12:08 system76::airplane -> ../../devices/platform/system76/leds/system76::airplane
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 18 12:07 system76::kbd_backlight -> ../../devices/platform/system76/leds/system76::kbd_backlight

I presume the Fn keys work now?

Yes they do