How to control Logitech G915 TKL keyboard lighting in Linux Ubuntu?

Logitech doesn't have an official driver for controlling the LED effects for Ubuntu. Is there any custom solution working (For example keyleds, openrgb, solaar, libratbag, anything else)?


Features that work out of the box:

  • All the media buttons, game mode (disables the Win key), volume control. In other words, all the buttons work.
  • Pressing cycles through brightness levels.
  • Pressing + [NUM] (where [NUM] is 0, 1, 2, ..., 9) allows you to change the lightning effect on the fly.
  • Pressing + - and + + changes the lightning effect speed for the non-custom effects.

Features that require setup

These require one-time setup with G HUB (connected through Lightspeed), then works everywhere you attach the keyboard to, including Linux:

  • You can create custom lightning effects in the G HUB app (or download free lightning effects created by others from the G HUB) and then store two of them on the keyboard itself. The animations are accessible through + 8, + 9 (You can also set it to FN + F1, FN + F2, etc.)
  • You can change the keyboard sleep timeout

Note: you might (not sure) need to activate the on-board mode for these to work fully. More on that below.

P.S. How to fix the reset to rainbow lightning effect after keyboard wakes up from sleep

Install G HUB (Windows or MacOS), connect keyboard with Lightspeed, go to Settings, and set ON-BOARD MEMORY MODE to ON. This is a one-time setup for the lifetime of a keyboard.

EDIT

There was an update to the GHub software and these are the new steps that allow for setting custom effects:

Create and name your lighting effect in Freestyle mode. Go to keyboard settings (a cog icon in the upper left corner) In the lower right corner of the settings add your named effect to the keyboard memory, but DO NOT switch to the onboard mode yet. Exit the settings and go back to lighting editor. In the editor, change effect type to preset instead of freestyle. Open the drop-down with presets and you'll see your own custom lighting at the bottom of the list. Select it. Only presets from this list can be stored as default in onboard mode. Now go back to settings, turn on the onboard mode and select your default profile, for which you've set your custom effect. (Credits to yawor)


There are some ways to control Logitech G915 TKL keyboard lighting in Linux Ubuntu:

  1. You can use default settings available from keyboard, by using * with any number from 0 - 9. It is working only temporary. After waking up keyboard from saving battery mode your chosen lighting will reset to default one.

  2. G Hub software - not useful too much on Linux, but I saw that people try different solutions using G Hub software on Windows and switching back to Linux. More info is on GitHub thread in g810-led project

  3. You can use Ratbagctl project - It's solution that I use on my Logitech G915 TKL keyboard and it is working good for me. But you need to be careful. It writes configuration to onboard flash (it overwrites the stored profile on your keyboard). Some people after using it had problems with power saving settings. I did not.

  4. You can use G810-led PR for G915 - It is the most flexible solution available right now, but I had the same problem like with default settings. After waking up keyboard from saving battery mode my setups were gone. There is a workaround for that, but I didn't try it. Ratbagctl was enough for me.

  5. There is also Keyleds project, but for now I was only able to change gamemode setups using this tool.

Additionally, I wrote article about G915 TKL keyboard where I summarized those solutions in more details.


There is a g810-led project on GitHub. It does not explicitly support the G915, but it does support several other similar Logitech keyboards.

g810-led will allow you to save profiles specifying the color and brightness of individual keys.

The project doesn't appear to support any other features at this time.

If you are platform locked with Windows-only software from Logitech, you might also want to check with their documentation to see if it has on-board memory allowing you to keep your settings even when connected to a different PC or a different OS.

Also check to see if there is documentation for programming the keyboard using special key combinations without using any software.

It might not be possible to use features that are only available when using proprietary software if the manufacturer does not provide the software for Linux.