With Linux 4.1 You Can Play With The Chrome OS Lightbar

Written by Michael Larabel in Google on 26 April 2015 at 11:54 AM EDT. Add A Comment
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Google's Chromebook Pixel features a "Lightbar" that's a series of LEDs supporting multiple colors. Chrome OS apps are able to take advantage of the Lightbar for various purposes and coming for Linux 4.1 is support for the Chrome OS lightbar within the mainline kernel.

Via new sysfs entries, those running a Linux distribution on the Chromebook Pixel can now control the LED brightness and colors. The brightness, sequence, and colors can all be adjusted by just writing to some the new /sys/devices/virtual/chromeos/cros_ec/lightbar.

Those with a Chrome OS lightbar on their device can find out the details for playing with it via this patch message. This new support is coming via the Chrome update for Linux 4.1.

Other Chrome OS device changes for Linux 4.1 are trackpad improvements, exposing the Chrome OS embedded controller (EC) user-space device interface, and MFD driver improvements.

Those unfamiliar with the Chrome OS lightbar can see this video below:

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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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