HOWTO : Joystick/Gamepads under Ubuntu

[minitchoup]

I managed to run my joystick : a sidewinder force feedback pro (FFP) on gameport with a kernel 2.6.24.

Before, when I load the module sidewinder I had the following message:

"sidewinder.c: unknown joystick device detected"

Detection joystick successful only if it was not powered.

Now it's ok. For this, I edit sidewinder.c like this :

line 693-694 :
                                 case 48: /* Ambiguous */
                                         if (j == 14) { /* ID length 14*3 -> FFP */

become :

                                case 16:
                                  sw->bits = 3;
                                case 48: /* Ambiguous */
                                         if (j == 14) { /* ID length 14*3 -> FFP */

when the power is turned off, mode = 3 and length = 16 => case 48
when the power is turned on, mode = 1 and length = 16 => case 16

To correct the module, you must do the following :
1/ Edit /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/joystick/sidewinder.c
2/ in a shell : cd /usr/src/linux ; make && make modules_install

To run my joystick I must do in a shell :

# modprobe joydev
# modprobe gameport
# modprobe sidewinder

[AJSB]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you !!!! =D>

I finally got, thanks to you, my KOnig Gaming gamepad (6axis + 12 buttons) working with games like True Combat:Elite, Enemy Territory Quake Wars, Enemy Territory Wolfenstein,etc.

The game pad is replacing in a very positive way, not only the keyboard but also the mouse

I have my usb Cordless Rumblepad II installed and running in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy. Wasn't easy (for me at least), but here's what I needed to do. Install Qjoypad. Forget the jscalibrate and joystick programs for a usb gamepad (from my experience anyway). They may be req'd for non-usb but trying to use them seemed to lead me down a dead end. This qt3-compiled program needed a bunch of stuff installed first through Synaptic though for a successful instl'n. I needed libqt3-mt-dev (has to be the "3" version apparently, as the "4" version is not backwards compatible.) qt3-dev-tools (which will be installed with all of the dependencies from above prog by default. libxtst-dev to take the place of the lXtst requirement. libqt3-mt and libaudio2. Also g++ is req'd. With the qt3 during the compiling, etc process the make command will use qmake instead (Somewhere there should be a simple howto for this, but I'm d***ed, if I could find anything out there to easily explain this stuff to someone, who has never done this before. Once the configure and qmake procedures are done, "sudo" will need to be used to do the make install step. I installed the 386 source code version. I used Doom3 from http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/ for the test game to set everything up for my gamepad. I'm running the i486 version of Gutsy Ubuntu and the by-default-installed 386 libraries will let you run Doom3 on the 486 version of linux. It needs the 5 pak files copied in from the store-bought ******* Doom3 game cd's (copied into the doom3/base/ directory) and then lastly the software key entered to work. Once qjoypad3 has been configured for the Doom3 game buttons, mouse movements, etc the game can be played I had to do this by working out the codes for my keybd keys and manually editing the hidden /home/usrname/.qjoypad3/doom3.lyt file, which I had set up, because for some reason qjoypad wouldn't recognize keybd clicks from my MS keybd. Before starting Doom3 I had to start qjoypad with the command qjoypad --device /dev/input (in order for qjoypad to find my usb gamepad, which shows up as js0 in the /dev/input directory.) If you want to know if your js0 gamepad actually works by the way, from terminal enter cat /dev/input/js0 and then press some buttons on your gamepad. If odd characters show up in the cat'ed /dev/input/js0 file as you press buttons, then Ubuntu is recognizing the presence of your usb gamepad. Thanks to Nate from the qjoypad team for the aforementioned tip. Hope this explanation helps someone, who was having the same problems as I was. If there's anything wrong here in my description, please feel free to correct.

[tulcak]

this is ********. what is an operating system supposed to do? give you a command line? then, why a GUI? and why a joystick? and why a flight simulator? maybe you can fly blind with a keyboard and audio beeps...

[dumpster25]

I go my TWO Sidewinder Gamepad (daisychained) working with the following modules sharing one gameport.

I followed the guide on this thread for the snd_ens1731. That's the soundcard I had.

Connect both gamepads to the gameport.

Then in the terminal run:
#sudo MAKEDEV js

Then:

#sudo modprobe -v joydev
#sudo modprobe -v sidewinder

Also by adding the extra line onto /etc/module/options:
options snd_ens1371 joystick_port=1

(On karmic i had to call this file /etc/module/snd_ens1371.conf instead of the name above)

This should be enough to have both gamepads up and running.

I ran into a problem at the beginning. When loading the modules with modprobe I only had one gamepad connected to the gameport. It resulted in only one working even though they were daisychained.

The solution was to unload the modules by running:

#sudo modprobe -rv joydev
#sudo modprobe -rv sidewinder

then delete /etc/input/js with:

#MAKEDEV -d js

Then I reconnected the second gamepad. And then ran:

#sudo MAKEDEV js

And Finally:
#sudo modprobe -v joydev
#sudo modprobe -v sidewinder

dmesg, showed both gamepads being detected.
And jstest showed that they worked corectly.

Thank you adam0509 for this awesome post. Thanks to this HOWTO I could play Street Fighter II Turbo with my brother on Xmas

[Rushlight]

ive tried everything sugested that applies.
i have a logitech dual action usb gamepad. almost all of the apt-gets listed return with a "unable to locate etc..etc..". the joystice one works but.. none of the commands seem to. i have Ubuntu 12.04.2. i NEEEED this to play KSP.

Help PLZ

[overdrank]

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