Ubuntu 20.04 LTS brightness control with command line[SOLVED]

While I moved my kernel face from 18.04  to 20.04 LTS,there were few irritants while I got adapted to new interface and features…and one of them was the missing brightness tab in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Don’t know why it was removed,but then may be a small community used it and so was discontinued. So I tried third party plugins, few new brightness apps also tried brightness controller but somehow was not happy with the desired screen brightness control.Though Ubuntu 20.04 has night light feature wherein you can tweak with color temperatures from  less warm to more warm but that too fall short of my requirement. So I just wanted a clean hassle free solution. So I got to know about the xrandr command. Xrandr is used to set the size, orientation and/or  reflection  of  the outputs for a screen. It can also set the screen size. 

The good thing is that this utility comes pre-installed with the OS. You just need to use it vide few command line inputs and these are as below:

The first command is

xrandr | grep " connected" | cut -f1 -d " "

This command basically gives you an output of the name of your monitor. In my case it gives HDMI-0.

 

After this command you need to use the same command with different switch and adjusting the brightness to suit your eyes. While 1 refers to highest brightness 0.1 refers to the lowest.So in bright rooms if you wish to set like me,I generally prefer 0.7.The command line goes like this:

 xrandr --output HDMI-0 --brightness 0.7

Other functions that this utility can assist you are with setting resolution and refresh rates. The command lines are mentioned below:

 

SETTING RESOLUTION

xrandr --output HDMI-0--mode 1680x1050

SCREEN REFRESH RATE

xrandr --output HDMI-0--mode 1680x1050 --rate 60.00

Another switch –q will query your monitors and give details as seen below

 Just remember to change your screen name as per your monitor name...in my case like I said...it is HDMI-0.

Increasing Laptop Bty Life : Few ways

1. Hibernate: Hibernating the laptop is always a tidier option than putting it on standby, or shutting it down. This is because the laptop’s hibernate mode saves it in the state it was hibernated in, and does not require the laptop to reboot all applications, thereby using much less power.

2. Get some extra RAM: Whenever a laptop runs short of RAM memory it end up shifting to the virtual memory which results in hard disk use, which is a much less efficient option in terms of power consumption. Putting in extra RAM does use more power, so don’t get too much extra, but when compared to the use of virtual memory it’s a more efficient option.

3. Apply energy saving options on the OS

4. Bring down the brightness of the screen

5. Shut Down External devices: Most USB devices and other external devices like external hard drives or USB lights or even USB mice should be switched off and removed if not in use.

6. Shutdown background apps

7. Amend battery cycle: For a healthy Lithium-ion based battery, it is always suggested to keep the electrons that are present inside in motion occasionally. That means it’s never a good idea to keep you laptop plugged in or on charge all the time as the electrons lose their ability to store energy. One should let it discharge fully and charge it completely at least once a month to keep the battery as good as new.

8. Switch-off unused wireless radios

9. Try to reduce multitasking: When using the laptop on battery power, one should try as much as possible to use one application at a time, and should ideally shut one application completely before opening another, to reduce consumption of both processing and battery power.

10. Defrag on regular intervals