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+---
+title: "I bought a new laptop and learned about Linux drivers the hard (fun) way"
+date: "2026-02-06"
+excerpt: "The Acer Nitro 18 is a fuck-off-sized powerful laptop with a keyboard that might be missing a few chromosomes"
+image: "/images/posts/nitro18-ai.jpg"
+---
+
+## Set and Setting
+
+All my life I have either been unable to afford or unable to reason with having a powerful laptop. I've had old business machines, new business machines, pieced computers together from trash and only once in my entire life have I bought a brand new computer (a cheap E-series ThinkPad). Until now. For some stupid reason I've splurged on a gaming laptop and it's been an uphill battle making it work like a ThinkPad that costs half as much. 
+
+## The Problem
+
+The Acer Nitro AN18-61 (2025) laptop has a four-zone keyboard with RGB which looks rather cool in Windows where it's controlled by the awful NitroSense app from Acer. When it's not directly controlled by OS-level software, it defaults to a rapid rainbow cycling effect which is hard to stomach. I don't know why a serious fuck-off-sized laptop should look like a chinese toy having an epileptic seizure but alas. The goal was to find a way to set a static single-color backlight.
+
+## Device Identification
+
+With the help of Claude code and some digging, the RGB controller was identified as:
+- **Device:** ENEK5130 (VID: 0x0CF2, PID: 0x510)
+- **Interface:** I2C HID (not USB)
+- **hidraw device:** `/dev/hidraw4`
+
+The Acer keyboard itself is a separate device (VID: 0x1025, PID: 0x174B) on `/dev/hidraw1`.
+
+## Failed Approaches
+
+### 1. Community Kernel Modules
+Tried [Linuwu-Sense](https://github.com/0x7375646F/Linuwu-Sense) and similar modules. They loaded but didn't expose RGB controls for this model—the `nitro_sense` sysfs directory was empty.
+
+### 2. Windows HID Capture
+I spent a few minutes to find the eye-poking-ly obvious AcerLightingService process and then used API Monitor on Windows to capture commands from Acer Nitro Sense:
+```
+a0 00 a0 0a 00 02 02 00 00 00...
+a0 00 a0 0a 00 01 02 01 00 19 00 1e...
+```
+These used **Report ID 0xA0**.
+
+### 3. Replay on Linux
+Attempted to send the captured 0xA0 commands via:
+- `HIDIOCSFEATURE` ioctl to hidraw4
+- Raw writes to hidraw
+- Direct I2C-HID protocol commands
+
+None produced any effect At this point I ran out of tokens and called it a day.
+
+### 4. HID Descriptor Mismatch
+Linux's HID descriptor for ENEK5130 only exposed reports **0xA1, 0xA2, 0xA3, 0xA4**—no 0xA0. The Windows-captured commands were targeting a report ID that didn't exist on Linux. I probed for the first three with no success - **keep this in mind, it will be important later.**
+
+### 5. Embedded Controller Probing
+Fired up Claude with a fresh usage quota, read EC registers at common keyboard backlight offsets. No correlation to RGB state was found.
+
+### 6. WMI/ACPI Methods
+The WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) GUID `7A4DDFE7-5B5D-40B4-8595-4408E0CC7F56` exists but standard ACPI method calls returned `AE_NOT_FOUND`. At this point I was in too deep with no idea what any of these things meant (still can't say I do completely). 
+
+## The Solution
+
+I gave up and it came to me :D
+
+I decided to ask for support in the Linuwu-Sense repo. I opened an issue with a gazillion lines of logs, descriptors, addresses, values, anything I had I threw at them. They came back to me with a link to an open pull request on their side which would possibly solve my issue. And then a repo to some guy like me who had his AI agent dig up the proper address and instructions. Turns out I was ***this*** close to figuring it out.
+
+The [acer-lighting-daemon](https://github.com/fcrespo82/acer-lighting-daemon) project, targeting similar Acer Predator/Nitro laptops, used **Report ID 0xA4** with a different command format:
+
+```
+[0xA4, device_id, effect, brightness, speed, direction, R, G, B, zone, 0x00]
+```
+
+Where:
+- `device_id`: 0x21 (keyboard), 0x83 (lid), 0x65 (button)
+- `effect`: 0x02 (static), 0x04 (breathing), 0x07 (wave), etc.
+
+**Turns out I only didn't check for the working ID** (and people who know me will not be surprised)
+
+## GUI Tray Applet
+
+Now that I had a working solution to this RGB vomit atrocity that Acer so lovingly put in a computer that's meant to be taken seriosly, I needed a convenient way to change colors without writing long commands. I created a Python GTK system tray applet and it was surprisingly easy.
+
+### Key Features
+- System tray icon for quick access
+- Color presets: Red, Green, Blue, White, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Orange
+- Custom color picker dialog for any RGB value
+- Effect selection: Static, Breathing, Neon, Wave, Ripple, Zoom, Snake, Disco ***(Srsly??)***, Shifting
+- Automatic state persistence (handled by daemon)
+- Settings survive reboots
+
+### Architecture
+- The applet runs as a regular user
+- Communicates with the root daemon via Unix socket (`/run/acer-rgbd.sock`)
+- Daemon handles HID device access and state persistence
+- State saved to `/var/lib/acer-rgbd/state.txt`
+
+[You can check it out in my self-hosted Gitea instance](https://git.jawhng.xyz/jawhng/acer-lighting-daemon)
+
+## What I Learned
+
+The Windows HID capture was misleading. Either Windows exposes the device differently, or the Acer driver performs internal translation. Well, I learned what HID is at all, WMI, ACPI, various device protocols and management systems etc. That was fun. I learned how drivers work and what they actually do, how they address the hardware and how they fit into the system (Linux). I learned how kernel modules work and I learned that I couldn't write one for the life of me. 
+
+Aside from that, I got a brief tutorial on looking deep into software-device communication exploring with various windows utilities which I am 100% certain I will never ever use again. 
+
+Best of all, I learned I can make my system tray look like the carnival in Rio with all the bullshit I can system-tray-applet-ize now. Hurray for customization. 
+
+
+### Resources
+
+- [acer-lighting-daemon](https://github.com/fcrespo82/acer-lighting-daemon) - Original userspace tool (upstream)
+- [Linuwu-Sense](https://github.com/0x7375646F/Linuwu-Sense) - Kernel module (may add support later)
+- [Linuwu-Sense PR #65](https://github.com/0x7375646F/Linuwu-Sense/pull/65) - Discussion on newer models