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I have installed both Redshift and f.lux on my Ubuntu 16.04 machine to try to change the color temperature of my screen. I can open the apps, but neither of them has an effect on the screen color tone. On F.lux, when I try to preview the color temperature, nothing happens. Does anybody know what could be going on here? Why isn't this working?

Note, I am using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti GPU.

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  • Could you update your question with a screenshot of the Redshift panel applet open?
    – Andrea Lazzarotto
    May 28, 2016 at 18:36
  • See my answer. I fixed it by switching to the correct driver.
    – Sergei Wallace
    May 28, 2016 at 18:37
  • Good! You should self-accept it. :)
    – Andrea Lazzarotto
    May 28, 2016 at 18:41
  • One solution that I found the easiest to implement (after searching for drivers and whatnot) was the one here, not related to RedShift or f.lux: switching to the built-in GNOME night-light in Ubuntu 17.10. Works very well with an Intel card and standard video driver. Just search for night light in Settings, can also be set for sunset/sunrise.
    – Martin Snåål
    Feb 28, 2018 at 21:01

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
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In a console type

redshift -l list

then I typed 

redshift -l geoclue2

then it just worked. I can even close and reopen it now and it works fine.

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  • I thought it was like a config but no, changed startup apps command to redshift-gtk -l geoclue2 and it worked, now it's info had non zero data, thx! Btw, geoclue also connected to internet, and I wasnt for a whole day, not sure if necessary tho.
    – Aquarius Power
    May 11, 2019 at 14:55
  • confirmed: if you are going to be offline, only this works redshift-gtk -l manual -l -12.34:56.78 (use geoclue2 to get the correct latitude and longitute prior, and each can be negatives)
    – Aquarius Power
    May 11, 2019 at 22:22
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I tried to get both f.lux and Redshift to work without any solution so I just opted to go another route. So I went to the Ubuntu Software Manager and installed Night Light slider as pictured below. It works and certainly isn't making me die from strained eyes and a headache from earlier in the evening due to no sleep.

  1. Search for Night Light on Ubuntu Software:

  2. Once installed, it just appears in your top right drop down menu and can be toggled to user preference.

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  • This question is about Ubuntu 16.04. You should point out in your answer it applies to Ubuntu 18.04+ only.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Aug 22, 2018 at 11:03
  • Thanks @radiostereio, really helped me out!
    – Lucas Bustamante
    Jul 19, 2019 at 20:41
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So I figured out how to use Redshift with my system. Basically, I was using the wrong display driver. When I went to the Additional Drivers tab in the Software & Updates app, I noticed I was using default Nouveau driver instead of the latest NVIDIA driver, and had the other tab set to "Do not use the device".

Initial Driver Settings

when I switched it to the NVIDIA driver tab and HDMA Driver with DKMS Format (daily-dkms) tab, and restarted the machine, it finally worked.

New Driver settings

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    At least redshift should work with the noveau drivers. Very curious to know what exactly went wrong there.
    – dobey
    Feb 28, 2017 at 1:56
  • I am experiencing this issue as well on Kubuntu 16.10 with a GeForce GTX 670 - using the NVIDIA binary driver - version 367.57 from nvidia-367 (Recommended Driver). I haven't tracked it down yet. Edit - Looks like it's a known bug in my case: forum.justgetflux.com/topic/2373/…
    – kjones
    Mar 11, 2017 at 7:35
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Redshift is time-based. It will change the color of your screen provided the following two conditions are met:

  • It can determine where you are (either via the default network-based location service or if you started it with the -l switch giving it coordinates)
  • It is evening in your place (you can change the interval with the -t switch, see man redshift)

The f.lux website describes pretty much the same thing:

f.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

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    Right, but it just isn't working at all. There is no color temperature change, even after editing the configurations file to have a significant color temperature difference (2000s).
    – Sergei Wallace
    May 28, 2016 at 18:34
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I'm using Linux Mint 18.2, but it is based on Ubuntu 16.04 and I have many of the same problems pop up, including this one. I just managed to resolve this on my laptop running a GTX 940 on the Nvidia 384.90 Driver and I will test it on my desktop with a 1070 tomorrow.

As noted above I ran the following to list the Locations that redshift can use to base it's color:

redshift -l list

Then I ran

redshift -l geoclue2 which allowed me to start the redshift service and everything was working fine. I then moved on to making sure that it worked on startup by opening up 'Startup Applications' and adding the last command as a custom command there. By clicking 'run now' I was able to test that it still worked but also run it as a background service as opposed to directly in the CLI.

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I just pause the f.lux and then un-pause it, and it worked for me.

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For me changing the Adjustment Method in the settings menu from drm to randr made it work.

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