Some programs to tweak ThinkPad laptops in Linux (fan - stopfan, display backlight - night) and quote - just some simple sample code.
stopfan and night : for the purpose to build exec files, put them in $PATH and grant them right to run as superuser by sudo chmod +xs /path/execname
The inspiration for stopfan is to be able to quickly silence the laptop, for night - to be able to set minimum brightness and be able to change on logarithmic scale.