Laptop display and adjusting brightness

[MichaelAM]

I have done some searching, nothing satisfying.
In my case the screen is not too bright - I can barely see it (laptop is T430, but from the number of posts model seems irrelevant).

Couple of suggestions for potential fixes:
a) make it something that can be adjusted during the install (as I have a "infra" setup, and no GUI et al installed).
b) Have a config file setting where the intensity could be set, or better adjusted

My solution shall be to reinstall, with GUI, hope I can get the display brighter, and then reinstall AGAIN - to get the setup back to where it is suppossed to be. Worst case - reinstall Windows, use that to reset display brightness, and then reinstall "Linux".

Ah yes, and also look in the BIOS - though I expect little help there. Brightness went away after installing Linux GUI (first bit of playing).

Sigh.

[MichaelAM]

p.s. I have verified that display brightness can be modified.
a) try Windows restore CD - brightness to normal, but fails as there is no windows installed to 'rescue'
b) I watch Centos boot - during BIOS part, display is "brighter", then goes dark as CentOS (grub?) takes hold, then while the "blue-band" along the bottom of the screen is 'progressing' the brightness changes.

So, I have hope an expert here will know of a setting to make it 'settable' for after (re)boot.

Thank you for your time!