✦ Glint

your monitor, wearing your rice

Install  ·  Features  ·  First five minutes  ·  Looks like your rice  ·  FAQ  ·  Roadmap

_{Katsushika Hokusai, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa”, c. 1830 to 1832. Public domain.
One quiet scene, one bright spark. That is the mood Glint is after.}

✦ Install in one line

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krvats/glint/main/install.sh | bash

_{It downloads one file, not the repo. It installs what it needs, fixes monitor permissions, wires itself into your desktop and checks everything.
Want to read it first? curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krvats/glint/main/install.sh | less}

Glint is a tiny control panel for the screen in front of you. Pick a resolution and refresh rate from a list. Drag real brightness and colour sliders. Tap Night and your monitor warms up. And the whole thing wears your colours, whichever rice you run.

🌊 Why it exists

Setting 143.98 Hz usually means editing a Lua or .conf file and guessing. Brightness means a joystick hidden on the back of your monitor. And after all that, half your apps still don't match your theme. Glint puts it all in one small place.

	Without Glint	With Glint
Refresh rate	Edit monitors.lua, guess 143.98, reload, hope	Pick it from a list. Auto-reverts in 12 s if the screen goes black
Brightness / colour	The monitor's own little buttons	Sliders, shortcuts and one-tap looks
Matching your theme	Per-app config files	Follows Caelestia / pywal live. GTK and Qt apps too
Installing	A page of steps per distro	One line
Undoing it	Hunt for what changed	--uninstall puts your files back

_{The Colour tab on a Caelestia desktop. Every rice looks different: share yours!}

🌙 Features

🖥 Screen Resolution and refresh rate from the list your monitor really offers, plus scale, rotation and position. Saved across reboots, with a 12-second safety revert.	☀ Colour Real hardware brightness, contrast, red/green/blue and colour temperature over DDC/CI. 0 is the monitor's true lowest, 100 its true highest.	🎨 Wears your rice Reads Caelestia's scheme, pywal or your gtk.css. Change the scheme and Glint recolours itself in about two seconds.
⌨ Shortcuts that behave Super+Alt+… for brightness and looks. Glint checks your existing binds first and never overrides one. Change any of them in the Keys tab.	🪟 Whole-desktop sync Optionally themes GTK 3/4, libadwaita, Qt (qt5ct/qt6ct), Flatpak and Firefox (via Pywalfox) with the same colours. Your old files are backed up.	🧰 Does the boring part Installs packages for your distro, adds the udev rule, the i2c-dev module and the i2c group, then runs a doctor so you know it works.

Three promises

🪶 Small	🤝 Honest	↩ Reversible
One Python CLI, one small GTK4 app, one installer file.	Tells you what it touched and what it can't do (see the scope note).	Backs up every file it edits. --uninstall puts them back.

🚀 Install

Already installed? Just run glint update. It is the same one-liner, run for you.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krvats/glint/main/install.sh | bash

No curl? wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krvats/glint/main/install.sh | bash

What you will see (colours trimmed):

  ✦
 ┏━┓╻  ╻┏┓╻╺┳╸
 ┃╺┓┃  ┃┃┗┫ ┃
 ┗━┛┗━╸╹╹ ╹ ╹   v1.0.0

▸ Looking at your system
  ✓ CachyOS Linux (package manager: pacman)
▸ Installing what Glint needs
  ✓ packages ready
▸ Installing Glint into ~/.local
  ✓ glint, glint-gui and the launcher entry
▸ Letting you talk to your monitor without sudo
  ✓ udev rule, i2c-dev module and i2c group
▸ Wiring it into your desktop
  ✓ shortcuts added (Super+Alt+M opens Glint; taken keys were skipped)
  ✓ Synced GTK, Qt and wal-aware apps to caelestia (dark).  Auto-sync is on.
▸ Checking everything
  [OK] ddcutil found   [OK] theme: following caelestia   [OK] GBT G27Q (i2c-5)
✦ Done. Open Glint from your launcher, press Super+Alt+M, or run glint --help

Option	Does
--yes	Ask nothing
--no-deps	Skip system packages
--no-sync	Don't theme other apps
--no-keys	Don't add shortcuts
--dry-run	Show what would happen, change nothing
--uninstall	Remove everything Glint added and put your files back (--purge also deletes saved settings)

Pass options like this: curl -fsSL <url> | bash -s -- --no-keys

After install: open Glint from your launcher, or press Super+Alt+M. Log out and in once if the installer just added you to the i2c group.

🔄 Update

Run the same install line again. It upgrades in place and keeps your settings, shortcuts and theme sync.

🪄 Caelestia's brightness slider

Caelestia reads your monitor once and then trusts its own copy, so when Glint or a shortcut changes the brightness, Caelestia's slider and OSD could lag. Glint now tells the running shell through its own IPC, after checking what that Caelestia version offers (glint shell-sync status shows it). If your Caelestia has no brightness IPC, Glint says so once. Then glint shell-sync restart makes it refresh by restarting the shell (at most once every 30 s), and glint shell-sync off turns the whole thing off.

🗑 Uninstall (one command)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krvats/glint/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --uninstall --purge

Already installed? This does the same offline: glint uninstall --all

It removes the program, launcher entry, shortcuts, Hyprland hook, theme sync, PATH lines, autostart entry, the udev rule, the i2c-dev module entry, your i2c group membership (only if Glint added it) and your saved settings. Drop --purge (or add --keep-settings to glint uninstall --all) to keep your settings. Packages like ddcutil stay installed because other tools may use them. It asks for sudo once for the system files.

🐧 Works on

Family	Package manager	Status
Arch, CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Manjaro	pacman	✅ built and used daily (CachyOS + Hyprland + Caelestia)
Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS	apt	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Fedora, Nobara	dnf	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
openSUSE	zypper	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Void	xbps	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Alpine	apk	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Gentoo	emerge	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Solus	eopkg	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
Fedora Atomic / Silverblue / Bazzite	rpm-ostree	📦 layers ddcutil, needs a reboot
RHEL, Rocky, Alma	yum / dnf	📦 package names mapped, needs your report
NixOS		📝 prints the lines to add to your config

Any other distro: the installer checks that ddcutil, python3, PyGObject, GTK 4 and libadwaita really exist and tells you what is missing and what to look for. It also works without systemd (Alpine, Void, Artix) and with doas instead of sudo.

Tried it on a distro in the 📦 rows? Tell us how it went. One line helps the next person.

Which screens and desktops work.

• External monitors: brightness, contrast and colour over DDC/CI on any compositor. Turn DDC/CI on in the monitor's own menu. Docks, KVMs and some adapters block it.
• Laptop panels: brightness works automatically through the kernel backlight, no ddcutil needed. It never goes below 1, so the screen can't go black.
• Resolution and refresh rate (Screen tab): Hyprland, wlroots compositors (Sway, river, labwc, Wayfire, needs wlr-randr 0.4+) and any X11 desktop (needs xrandr). Saved layouts are re-applied at login. On GNOME and KDE Wayland use the system Settings for resolution; Glint's brightness and colour still work there.
• Shortcuts: added automatically on Hyprland. Elsewhere, bind glint step brightness +10, glint profile apply night and glint-gui in your desktop's keyboard settings.

What exactly does the installer touch?

Step	Where	Undo
Program files	~/.local/bin/glint, glint-gui, ~/.local/share/glint/	--uninstall
Launcher entry	~/.local/share/applications/glint.desktop	--uninstall
Monitor access	/etc/udev/rules.d/60-glint-i2c.rules, /etc/modules-load.d/glint.conf, group i2c	--uninstall
Monitor settings + shortcuts	~/.config/glint/ plus one line at the end of your hyprland.lua (or hyprland.conf). A .glint.bak backup is made first	glint uninstall
Theme sync (only if Caelestia or pywal colours exist)	~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css, gtk-4.0/gtk.css, qt5ct/qt6ct, ~/.cache/wal/colors.json, a systemd user path unit	glint sync off puts your old gtk.css back

It never replaces your files, never touches keybinds you already use, and asks for sudo once for the system step.

🧭 Your first five minutes

1. Install with the one-liner above.
2. Run glint doctor. Every line should start with [OK]:

   glint 1.0.0 doctor
   
   [OK] ddcutil found
   [OK] i2c access
   [OK] theme: following caelestia (dusk, dark)
   [OK] app sync: on
   [OK] screen: DP-1 2560x1440@59.95
   
   [OK] 1: GBT G27Q (i2c-5)
         colour      6500k
         brightness  52%   contrast  50%   red 100%   green 100%   blue 100%
   

3. Open Glint → Screen, choose 2560x1440 and 143.98, press Apply, then Keep.
4. Open Colour, tap Night and watch your monitor change.
5. Switch your Caelestia scheme. Glint (and your GTK/Qt apps) recolour themselves.

🎛 Using it

The app: four tabs. Screen · Colour · Keys · Look.

The terminal:

glint screen list                                   # outputs and the modes they offer
glint screen set DP-1 --resolution 2560x1440 --refresh 144   # 144 becomes 143.98 automatically
glint get                                           # current brightness, contrast, colours
glint set brightness 40                             # 0 = the monitor's true lowest
glint profile apply night                           # day · night · movie · gaming · reading
glint theme                                         # which colours Glint is wearing right now
glint sync now                                      # re-theme GTK/Qt/wal apps this second
glint doctor                                        # health check with fixes
glint report                                        # one file for bug reports (serials removed)

⌨ Shortcuts (all Super+Alt, all changeable)

Keys	Does
Super+Alt+M	Open Glint
Super+Alt+↑ / ↓	Brightness +10 / −10
Super+Alt+N / D / G	Night / Day / Gaming look

Taken by something else? Glint skips it and tells you. Change any with glint keys set night "SUPER ALT, F9" or in the Keys tab. glint keys off removes them all.

🎨 Looks like your rice

flowchart LR
  A["Caelestia<br/>scheme.json"] --> P{{"Glint palette"}}
  B["pywal<br/>colors.json"] --> P
  C["your<br/>gtk.css"] --> P
  P --> G["Glint's own window<br/>(live, ~2 s)"]
  P --> S["glint sync"]
  S --> GTK["GTK 3 / 4<br/>libadwaita"]
  S --> QT["Qt<br/>qt5ct / qt6ct"]
  S --> W["wal-aware tools<br/>Pywalfox, …"]
  S --> M["Monitor<br/>Day / Night look"]

Loading

Source	How Glint finds it	Notes
Caelestia	~/.local/state/caelestia/scheme.json	Material You colours; follows light/dark
pywal	~/.cache/wal/colors.json	Also works for wallust and others that write the same file
gtk.css	~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css	Many rices and Material tools generate this
System	your GTK / libadwaita theme	Used when nothing above exists

Tune it in the Look tab or ~/.config/glint/theme.json:

{ "source": "auto", "radius": 18, "glass": 1.0, "accent": "#ffb3d9",
  "colors": { "bg": "#0e0f1a" } }

Want full control? Drop your own CSS into ~/.config/glint/theme.css. It always wins.

🖼 Pair it with art

A scheme made from your wallpaper takes its colours from the picture, so a good print gives your whole desktop a mood. These are public domain Japanese woodblock prints from Wikimedia Commons: free to use as wallpapers, no strings.

Indigo and cream: Hokusai, The Great Wave (restored scan, 8242×5640)

Ember and sky: Hokusai, Fine Wind, Clear Morning (“Red Fuji”, 4400×2937)

Save one as your wallpaper, let Caelestia build a scheme from it, and watch Glint (and the rest of your apps) pick it up.

🔒 Optional: lock the way you want

glint lock-setup on makes the top button of Caelestia's power panel start Caelestia's own lock screen, and stops anything from locking by itself on sleep, wake or idle. Only the button or your shortcut locks. Screen on/off behaviour is left alone. glint lock-setup off restores your files from backups. After turning it on, run pkill hypridle; hypridle &.

🔧 How it works

flowchart TB
  U(["You: app, shortcut or terminal"]) --> CLI["glint (one small Python file)"]
  CLI -->|"DDC/CI over the cable"| MON[("Your monitor<br/>brightness · contrast · colour")]
  CLI -->|"hyprctl"| HY["Hyprland<br/>resolution · refresh · scale"]
  CLI -->|"writes a managed file, loaded last"| CF["~/.config/glint/monitors.lua"]
  CLI -->|"palette"| TH["Theme sync"]

Loading

Percent always means the monitor's real range: 0 is its lowest, 100 its highest. Screen changes are applied live, then saved only when you press Keep.

❓ FAQ

My monitor "doesn't have DDC/CI". Does that matter?

If glint doctor shows values like brightness and contrast, DDC/CI is already on. Some monitors expose a toggle (Menu → System → DDC/CI), others leave it always on. Use a DisplayPort/HDMI cable straight to the graphics card, not a dock.

Brightness says 0% and my screen is not dark.

0% is the monitor's lowest hardware setting, which on many panels is still comfortable. That is the point of using real values.

The screen went black after Apply.

Wait 12 seconds. Glint reverts by itself unless you press Keep.

NVIDIA proprietary driver?

DDC may need nvidia.NVreg_RegistryDwords="RMUseSwI2c=0x01;RMI2cSpeed=100" on the kernel command line. The installer tells you if it sees NVIDIA.

Overdrive, Black Equalizer, Aim Stabilizer, picture modes?

Those are vendor-specific codes that differ per maker. Run glint report and attach it to an issue: it takes 30 seconds and gets your monitor added for everyone.

Is it safe?

Every file it edits gets a backup, nothing overrides your keybinds, and --uninstall reverses it all. The installer is one readable file: read it before you run it.

🗺 Roadmap

• Brightness, contrast, RGB, colour temperature, one-tap looks
• Resolution, refresh rate, scale, rotation, position (Hyprland, wlroots via wlr-randr, X11 via xrandr)
• Laptop panel brightness without DDC · one-command uninstall
• Live theme from Caelestia, pywal, gtk.css · whole-desktop sync
• One-line installer for pacman, apt, dnf, yum, zypper, xbps, apk, emerge, eopkg, rpm-ostree
• Screen tab for KDE Wayland (kscreen-doctor) and GNOME Wayland, niri
• VRR / HDR toggles, multi-monitor layout canvas
• Vendor feature packs (Overdrive, Black Equalizer…) from community reports
• AUR · Nix · Flatpak packages
• A panel inside the Caelestia shell itself

🌸 Be part of it

Glint is small on purpose, and gets better with every monitor and rice it meets.

• ⭐ Star the repo so other rice-lovers can find it
• 🖥 Add your monitor: glint report → open an issue
• 📸 Share your rice with Glint on it (r/unixporn, Mastodon, anywhere) and tag the repo
• 🧩 Send a PR: see CONTRIBUTING.md

If Glint saved you an evening of editing config files, one star is the nicest thank-you. ✦

🙏 Credits

• Art: all pictures of woodblock prints are by Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849), in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: Under the Wave off Kanagawa (source scan: the Metropolitan Museum of Art), restored scan, and Fine Wind, Clear Morning. Glint contains no art of its own.
• Header wave by capsule-render, typing line by readme-typing-svg, badges by shields.io, star chart by star-history
• Caelestia for the Material You scheme format and the desktop Glint was built to match
• ddcutil by Sanford Rockowitz, the engine behind real monitor control
• Tagline font: Lora (SIL OFL)

Code: MIT