WildGuppy For Linux

WildGuppy is an open source application, an applet (indicator) designed to be used under the Ubuntu Linux operating system. It installs itself into the Unity Panel and provides users with the ability to quickly adjusts the brightness of their laptop’s LCD.

The applications is engineered in such a way that it will make use of regularly captured snapshots from the integrated webcam and automatically adjust the laptop's brightness. The automatic brightness functionality is fully configurable.

As explained before, the program resides in the system tray area. When users click on its icon, a menu will be displayed, allowing them to start, stop or restart the automatic brightness functionality.

The ‘Brightness Levels’ entry can be used to manually choose a brightness level for your laptop. In addition, a “Feeling Lucky” mode is provided, which, when pressed, it will take a single sample and set the brightness level. No additional sample will be taken after using this function, so you will need to restart the applet if you want to use the automatic brightness functionality.

The ‘Settings’ entry will display a dialog that lets users to modify the time interval when webcam snapshots are taken (in seconds), meaning that every X seconds the applet will use the integrated camera to take a sample. You can also set the maximum level of the brightness, forcing the application to never set the laptop’s brightness above this level. Users can also set the minimum level of the brightness, instructing the application to never set the brightness below this level.

It is good to know that when using the ‘Brightness Levels’ function, the automatic brightness functionality will be stopped immediately. Some users reported fast battery drain when using this application, so if it does not work well for your, don’t use it. There are other ways to set your brightness in Ubuntu!