[tjoff]

That might work if you only have one display. But on more than one that gets tiresome real quick.

On linux I use ddccontrol to control the brightness on all displays at once (using a simple for loop in the terminal).

I plan to write a script for it that would allow me to bring up a dialog and enter brightness from just a shortcut, but this is good enough til that itch comes.

I'm sure there are alternatives to all operating systems.