I'm fiddling with those now... As far as I can tell the file you referred to is always at 0 and never effects anything if changed.

However, I'll try it with the device in my at-boot console and see what happens.(You might be thinking of "led_current" in the same directories - only problem is they're already set to 50 once the driver loads, and changing them doesn't turn the keyboard leds on/off, just changes their brightness.)

- Edit -

You were correct sir! Thank you!

- Edit 2 -

But this means that at some point after early boot, something else takes over keyboard LED on-ness control, since during normal operation, dbrightness is at -1, brightness is at 0, and no amount of echoing higher values into it changes that as far as I can tell.

- Edit 3 -

In power kernel 47 (and all higher versions probably, if any more come out), the module is loaded using "modprobe fbcon". Framebuffer console comes from two different modules, and as I understand it, Pali made one auto-loaded (or statically compiled in, I don't recall), while the other (fbcon) is not automatically loaded. But with this setup, you just have to add "modprobe fbcon" to a script early on (I used /sbin/preinit, because I was ready to reflash to reach my ideal of a proper root shell early option at boot, and wanted to get it in as early as possible; for backup menu's purposes you could probably load it either in bootmenu or backupmenu itself - however, beware - when I was modding my /sbin/preinit file, trying to insmod/modprobe non-existing modules led to a non-booting device - kernel would panic on every reboot after, for some reason - I don't know why, so I can't say if it would have the same effect in bootmenu. Since backupmenu is in a chroot, it might _hopefully_ be safer in there... but idk if you can load modules from in there in a way that will work for fbcon giving you a console opportunity... just make sure you are ready to reflash and test everything you do on all relevant kernel variants. My advice is check if fbcon exists in the modules directory, and only load it and the following shell if it does).

Keep in mind though that my long-term goal is to create an open source 'clone' of /sbin/preinit with the press-any-key-to-get-shell-countdown at boot, and plop it into -devel; and it wouldn't conflict with backupmenu as far as I know. So people who install both will have a setup where they boot, press-any-key for shell, and if they close/keep-open the keyboard right as they exit, they can either keep booting normally or drop into bootmenu/multiboot, respectively... hopefully.

The long-term hope is for me to find the time and knowledge to clone all the bootup scripts that aren't freely distributable, submit them to the CSSU and get us closer to a completely free Maemo 5. Knowing me it won't get done until no one else in the world is using the N900, but I can dream.