For the brightness issue, if you are running X:

allow dimming display beyond normal max dimming:

  xrandr --output eDP --brightness 0.5
restore to normal brightness range:

  xrandr --output eDP --brightness 1
(substitute the actual output name for your display instead of eDP; run xrandr without args to list)

nice! didn't know about that. Thanks!

Someone was upset about it. The comment was down voted?

Try to be helpful.

Maybe they're upset you're not using Wayland?

Then again, every Wayland compositor family has their own tools...