The MSI Keyboard Light Manager (MSIKLM) is an easy-to-use tool that allows to configure the SteelSeries keyboards of MSI gaming notebooks with Linux in almost the same way as the SteelSeries Engine can do using Windows.
I tried to keep the external dependencies to a minimum level, however there are some unavoidable ones. These are:
- GCC - the C compliler
- make - the main build tool of the Linux world
- LIBUSB - MSIKLM needs to communicate with the keyboard, for this LIBUSB is required
Besides there are no others, no Qt, no Java, not even a C++ compiler is required. To install the program, there is an installation script 'install.sh' which can be run by opening the respective folder in a terminal and typing
./install.sh
or if there are any problems you can try
bash install.sh
as well which will most certainly will work on most Linux distributions. This script will to the following steps, if you do not want to use the installation script for some reason, you can use the manual commands instead:
-
installation of the dependencies
sudo apt-get install -y gcc make libhidapi-dev -
compiling of MSIKLM
make -
clean up
make clean -
copy the built program to '/usr/local/bin/msiklm' and set its permissions
sudo mv -fv msiklm /usr/local/bin/msiklm sudo chmod 744 /usr/local/bin/msiklm -
test the connection
sudo msiklm test
Whenever MSIKLM is used, it should always be run as root because otherwise, the communication with the keyboard is not possible, hence always use the sudo prefix (only 'msiklm help' will work as non-root).
Currently, the only linux distribution providing an install method is Archlinux, via the AUR repository
- Archlinux : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/msiklm-git/
MSIKLM is a pure command line application, however its keyboard illumination control functionality is encapsulated such that it could easily be integrated into a graphical user interface. However, I neither wrote one for it nor I plan to do so. It is quite easy to use, and here is how to use it. It always has to be called with at least one argument, i.e. running it without one will result in an error. Here is an overview over the valid commands:
| command | valid arguments | example |
|---|---|---|
| sudo msiklm | none, off (equivalent to none), red, orange, yellow, green, sky, blue, purple, white | sudo msiklm green |
| sudo msiklm <color_left>,<color_middle>,<color_right> | same as single color (important: no space between the colors!) | sudo msiklm green,blue,red |
| sudo msiklm | normal, gaming, breathe, demo, wave | sudo msiklm wave |
| sudo msiklm | color either one or three values (comma-separated), brightness can be off, low, medium, high | sudo msiklm green high |
| sudo msiklm | same as above | sudo msiklm green,blue,red wave |
| sudo msiklm | same as above | sudo msiklm green,blue,red high wave |
Additionally, there are three extra commands that might be useful if something does not work: msiklm help -> shows the program's help sudo msiklm test -> tests if a compatible keyboard is found sudo msiklm list -> lists all found hid devices, this might be helpful if your keyboard is not detected by MSIKLM
An important additional feature is the optional autostart functionality since the keyboard will reset itself to its default color configuration whenever you reboot it or resume from standby. Hence, it is really useful to automatically reconfigure the keyboard to your configuration of choice. To do this, there is an extra script called 'autostart.sh' that can do this for you. This autostart functionality is two-fold: The first thing is to automatically configure the keyboard during system boot, the other one is to automatically configure it when resuming from standby. For the first one, the file /etc/rc.local (this is an initialization script that is called during system boot) will be modified such that MSIKLM will be called with your arguments of choice, i.e. the following line will be added to your /etc/rc.local:
/usr/local/bin/msiklm <your arguments>
To configure the keyboard when resuming from standby, an additional script has to be created because /etc/rc.local will not be called here. Unluckily the scripts that will be needed depend on the current Linux/Ubuntu version. For the latest Ubuntu releases, the standby/wakeup scripts have to be placed in the directory /lib/systemd/system-sleep/ while for older versions probably /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/ is the path of choice. Not only this, also the commands that you have to place in these scripts differ. To do both, modify /etc/rc.local and create a wakeup script in /lib/systemd/system-sleep/, run:
./autostart.sh <your arguments>
Try if everything works by first rebooting your system and then try a standby and wakeup. If everything works, we are done here. If not, probably your Linux version is an older one, i.e. the script has to be placed in /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/ and has to be modified as well. So first move the script by
sudo mv /lib/systemd/system-sleep/msiklm-wakeup.sh /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99ZZ_msiklm-wakeup.sh
and second modify its content by running
sudo <editor> /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99ZZ_msiklm-wakeup.sh
where is your favorite text editor (gedit, kate, ...). Then modify the text file to
#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
resume)
/usr/local/bin/msiklm <your arguments>
esac
save it and try a standby resume. Finally the autostart can be disabled by running
./autostart.sh --disable
which will undo the modifications of /etc/rc.local as well as removing the created wakeup script. If you manually moved the wakeup script, it will not be automatically removed.
MSIKLM also comes with an uninstallation script uninstall.sh which will remove the program file /usr/local/bin/msiklm as well as running ./autostart --disable, i.e. it disables the autostart and removes created wakeup scripts. If you want to use it, simply run:
./uninstall.sh
The source code is splitted into three files: The main application (main.c) that converts the input as well as a small library that contains the main features (msiklm.h and msiklm.c). It provides a simple C API and hence allows an easy integration into different programs like maybe a small graphical user interface.