Steam Controller On Ubuntu, A Tweak You Need To Do

Mine just arrived!


As a Xubuntu user, this guide will be useful. Thanks, Liam.

Edit: Sexy hardware pics!






Last edited by Keyrock on 16 October 2015 at 3:49 pm UTC

Mine didn't arrive because those "heroes" at GLS didn't want to give the package to my neighbors. Now I have to wait until Monday...

Mine (long with the Steam Link) is on the truck! Though I'm irritated that the initial estimated delivery date was on the 13th, it was at 'creating label' for a very long time...

Mine should arrive by the time I get home from work. Seeing lots of bad-mouthing on the Steam forums (what else is new?), but I get the impression most people have only played with it a few minutes which isn't really enough time to formulate a valid opinion.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 16 October 2015 at 4:21 pm UTC

Mine just arrived!

You are late.

Some pics of mine:


BTW:Anyone photographed the "secret message" yet?

I imagine there will be growing pains in the first few months, as with all new hardware. Heck, it's not even officially out yet. We're pioneers, trailblazers, intrepid explorers creating a path for future generations to follow, just like Lewis & Clark, Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and Zheng He.

Okay, that last part might be overblown a bit, just slightly, though. :P

Hmm, I'm wondering if they work out of the box on Debian, has anyone tested it? I use Stretch at the moment, but I'd think Valve would have added patches for Jessie.

We're pioneers, trailblazers, intrepid explorers creating a path for future generations to follow, just like Lewis & Clark, Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and Zheng He.

Epic. But you forgot Zuse and Turing, Thompson & Ritchie. ^_^

I imagine there will be growing pains in the first few months, as with all new hardware. Heck, it's not even officially out yet. We're pioneers, trailblazers, intrepid explorers creating a path for future generations to follow, just like Lewis & Clark, Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and Zheng He.

Okay, that last part might be overblown a bit, just slightly, though. :P

Yeah, you're all making sure I don't have things to rant about here when I get mine ;)

I got mine a few hours ago. The controller feels great though I agree with the Ars Technica article when they say the face buttons are an afterthought, they are small and awkwardly place. I am running fedora 22 and with the controller I am able to emulate mouse on the system, I never thought web browsing with a controller would that comfortable.

I was loving the controller till I run into some issues: apparently my steam controller cannot load gamepad profiles (keyboard+mouse profiles work just fin) so I cannot play any game which requires a gamepad (ahh, bitter irony :P ). Searching around it looks like I am not the only one with this issue and it happens in all platforms. Have you guys experienced something similar? Do you know of any workaround?

I am running Steam beta client and I sent a bug report about this (they ask me nicely to troubleshoot for them :) )

Share your issues and thoughts!

I thought this was an "early bird" release. It wasn't made entirely clear at the time that this is essentially "early access" for hardware. I'm not complaining because it's always fun to have a new toy to play with, and I'm confident Valve will get things sorted out, but I they could have curtailed a lot of the grumbling if they had been more clear about exactly what we were in for.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 16 October 2015 at 6:16 pm UTC

BTW:Anyone photographed the "secret message" yet?

What secret message?

I got mine a few hours ago. The controller feels great though I agree with the Ars Technica article when they say the face buttons are an afterthought, they are small and awkwardly place. I am running fedora 22 and with the controller I am able to emulate mouse on the system, I never thought web browsing with a controller would that comfortable.

I was loving the controller till I run into some issues: apparently my steam controller cannot load gamepad profiles (keyboard+mouse profiles work just fin) so I cannot play any game which requires a gamepad (ahh, bitter irony :P ). Searching around it looks like I am not the only one with this issue and it happens in all platforms. Have you guys experienced something similar? Do you know of any workaround?

I am running Steam beta client and I sent a bug report about this (they ask me nicely to troubleshoot for them :) )

Share your issues and thoughts!

My first guess would be that you are unable to write the firmware update to the device, which is required (AFAIK) when changing mode. Didn't the chmod 666 trick work for you ?

I think I will wait a bit until the issues get ironed out, and the crowd gets more enthusiastic about it, though this first batch will likely be collector one day :)
(Or end up like the old, fat xbox controllers :P )

I want a Steam Controller so badly, but unfortunately i live in Scandinavia and we are not part of the pre-order. :/

My age old PS3 controllers are in desperate need for retirement and i have been putting of replacing them in anticipation of the Steam controller. I will buy two the first chance i get. Apparently someone is making big bucks on this on eBay. Look at the prices some of these are demanding!


Last edited by Sn3ipen on 16 October 2015 at 6:43 pm UTC

I need a deep review in linux. How is in comparation of sisaxis (ps3 controller) or gamecube controller (for me the best controller I tried)?

Why It has to have batteries? It runs well without it (plugged in usb)? Has it motors (vibration motor)? Motion sensors? How does it feel in general. It's an strategy game or point and click playable?
How long does de batteries last?

When Rocket League will be available to linux? (If it's the "steam os" controller the free games should be playable with steam os).

Thanks.

It's surprisingly good as a mouse on the desktop. It's not as good as my trackball, but it's shockingly competent. The haptic feedback is really good. It's subtle and... it's hard to describe, but it feels "right".


Last edited by Keyrock on 16 October 2015 at 8:25 pm UTC

I got mine a few hours ago. The controller feels great though I agree with the Ars Technica article when they say the face buttons are an afterthought, they are small and awkwardly place. I am running fedora 22 and with the controller I am able to emulate mouse on the system, I never thought web browsing with a controller would that comfortable.

I was loving the controller till I run into some issues: apparently my steam controller cannot load gamepad profiles (keyboard+mouse profiles work just fin) so I cannot play any game which requires a gamepad (ahh, bitter irony :P ). Searching around it looks like I am not the only one with this issue and it happens in all platforms. Have you guys experienced something similar? Do you know of any workaround?

I am running Steam beta client and I sent a bug report about this (they ask me nicely to troubleshoot for them :) )

Share your issues and thoughts!

I just got mine to work in games as a gamepad - Permissions on /dev/input will make it work in Big Picture Mode. Permissions on /dev/uinput will make it work in games. Please make sure that the permission is set on uinput - "chmod 0660" was not enough for me.

I want a Steam Controller so badly, but unfortunately i live in Scandinavia and we are not part of the pre-order. :/

My age old PS3 controllers are in desperate need for retirement and i have been putting of replacing them in anticipation of the Steam controller. I will buy two the first chance i get. Apparently someone is making big bucks on this on eBay. Look at the prices some of these are demanding!

I live in Denmark and I got mine today? So i do not think that Scandinavia as a whole is excluded from the pre-order?

Be sure to opt in to the Steam client beta. I went to add this entry to my Kubuntu install and noticed that it was already there.

Has anyone tried playing Mark of the Ninja with the steam controller? Doesn't work for me. Guess I'll keep playing with the Logitech for now.

Hmm, found on Debian Stretch

/etc/udev/rules.d/90-uinput.rules

KERNEL=="uinput", GROUP="uinput-users", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="uhid", GROUP="uinput-users", MODE="0660"

For whatever reason /dev/uinput doesn't keep settings, it's always

crw------- 1 root root 10, 223 Oct 16 20:56 /dev/uinput

Newer kernels (Linux skint 4.2.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.2.1-2 (2015-09-27) x86_64 GNU/Linux) does not have the hidraw module anymore.

I don't know where 90-uinput.rules came from. I don't see it within debian's packages (apt-file came up empty)

It seems to kind of work, but couldn't get firmware to load, or steam to detect it when I tried the 'add steam controller' button.

slaapliedje


Last edited by slaapliedje on 17 October 2015 at 3:06 am UTC