19

Recently I have installed i3 windows manager.

The problem is that the footnote keys to control the volume and brightness don't work.

How can I solve this?

And how can I bind the mod key to the Win key?

Bas Peeters
  • 113
  • 6
Gabriel Sandoval
  • 907

5 Answers5

27

Multimedia Keys

First install these packages for brightness and volume:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install xbacklight alsa-utils pulseaudio

Then from I3 FAQ:

Add these lines to ~/.config/i3/config

# Pulse Audio controls
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl -- set-sink-volume 0 +5% #increase sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl -- set-sink-volume 0 -5% #decrease sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-mute 0 toggle # mute sound

# Sreen brightness controls
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec xbacklight -inc 20 # increase screen brightness
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec xbacklight -dec 20 # decrease screen brightness

Mod key

To change the $mod key:

  • Open ~/.config/i3/config.

  • Look for the line:

    set $mod

  • Change that to:

    set $mod Mod4

  • Finally, run i3-msg reload to reload the configuration file.

Evan Carroll
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Raphael
  • 8,135
3

For volume, i used the command "amixer",

First, make sure you hava all the devices enabled, to see that first type

amixer

That should give tou the 'Master' state [on] or [off]

If it is [off], Set it to [on] by typing

amixer sset Master on

.

Now changing the default code of:

# Pulse Audio controls
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-volume 2 +5% #increase sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-volume 2 -5% #decrease sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-mute 0 toggle

to this one:

bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec amixer sset Master 5%+
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec amixer sset Master 5%-
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec amixer sset Master toggle

This command increase that percentage to all the output devices

Works perfect for me

arthur
  • 39
1

Well it's a variant of the same instructions as always, but for me I found light by haikarainen to work best over a variety of hardware:

So in your i3 config file, set:

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec light -U 10
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec light -A 10

Then simply reload with $mod+Shift+c or i3-msg reload or by directly restarting the WM.

HaoZeke
  • 449
1

xbacklight doesn't work for me. I wrote this script which writes directly into the kernel exposed back-light files, at least for intel:

https://github.com/jappeace/brightnessctl

I had to do a reinstall recently and just now made a makefile to make installation easier. This is just an alternative for if the xbacklight solution doesn't work for you either.

user2232199
  • 11
-1
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbacklight

change set $mod to Mod4 in ~/.config/i3/config

and

add in ~/.config/i3/config:

# Pulse Audio controls
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl -- set-sink volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +5% #increase sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id pactl -- set-sink volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ -5% #decrease sound volume
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-mute @DEFAULT_SINK@ toggle # mute sound

# Sreen brightness controls
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec xbacklight -inc 20 # increase screen brightness
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec xbacklight -dec 20 # decrease screen brightness

save file

and press $mod+Shift+c or restart i3wm

Lucas Lima
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