Interview With Stefan Achatz Developer Of ROCCAT Gaming Hardware Drivers For Linux

QuoteMy name's Stefan Achatz. I'm a nearly 40 Years old German who can't remember why exactly he ordered a copy of S.u.S.E. Linux 4.3 in a bookshop some 18 years ago.

QuoteFor 4-5 years now I reverse engineer the USB communications of Roccat keyboards and mice to write according Linux drivers. Nowadays I do this with the permission and support from the Manufacturer, also I started disassembling the firmwares in search for interesting things.

QuoteBy now they give me the hardware, sometimes from pilot production which enables me to provide release day support. I'm also allowed to use their graphics and sounds.

QuoteHaving no idea about kernel module programming and USB communications was quite some entry threshold. Once you can sniff the data, finding the meaning of most of it is merely a puzzle.

QuoteSeeing the Valo at the Games Convention in 2009 I asked the hired booth-guy about Linux support. Him saying yes without getting red led me to write a mail to the company. Not having planned such a thing, they encouraged me to do it myself. While the Valo was delayed I got me a Kone and dug into USB and kernel driver programming.

QuoteI liked Valo's macro keys and wanted to utilize them under Linux. Fun fact: I never finished the Valo driver because the device had quite some design flaws and finally broke down on me. After their firstborn Kone and Valo, Roccat made a big leap in design quality e.g. their devices being really HID compatible. All in all, Roccat devices are the most feature rich which makes them appealing not only to use but to reverse engineer.

QuoteLinux distros are numerous and every single one has their own peculiarities that change over time. Seeing a couple distros over the years I finally landed using Fedora, my main development system being a mixture of Fedora 13 and 15. I have no plans of upgrading soon as it enables me to make my drivers backwards compatible. I like my desktop classical and slick, using Gnome 2 at the moment but leering at Cinnamon or MATE as future options.

QuoteThere's nothing to be said against it, the response to their support and my work seems to be quite positive. I'm looking forward to which of last CES novelties will be the next I'm getting to work on.

QuoteCurrently I split up the roccat project, creating a library providing manufacturer independent components. Hopefully this provides a unified look and feel and eases the development for others. Generally I'm looking forward for GOG to finally support Linux. And Roccat? They already have the best Linux support for their devices, maybe we should hope for a Linux version of Power-Grid.