In this document, you can find, pair, connect and read the input event signals from the controller. This would be the first step to build a game-pad controlled robot arm.
We will need bluez to make a bluetooth connection to the device.
sudo pacman -S bluez bluez-utils
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service
sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service
Run
bluetoothctl
Once in the bluetoothctl suite, run following commands. They are self-explanatory
power on
scan on
A list of discoverable devices will appear with their corresponding MAC address. Look for the name of the controller, mine is “LIC PRO CONTROLLER”. Say the MAC is 40:EC:99:A5:93:20. We continue by
scan off
pair 40:EC:99:A5:93:20
trust 40:EC:99:A5:93:20
connect 40:EC:99:A5:93:20
Make sure the connection is approved.
hid-nintento and daemon joycondIf you didn’t install dkms and linux-headers then go ahead and install these packages first:
sudo pacman -S dkms linux-lts-headers
I used the linux-lts so I installed the linux-lts-headers. If you are not using the LTS version, install the non-LTS kernel headers.
Let’s start with installing the kernel module. The installation instruction is right on the module’s github. You might need to change it a bit.
git clone https://github.com/nicman23/dkms-hid-nintendo
cd dkms-hid-nintendo
sudo dkms add .
After the last command, the text output will let you know the version of the hid-nintendo being installed. At the moment of this writing, I have nintendo-3.1 version installed. This version number goes into the next command.
sudo dkms build nintendo -v 3.1
sudo dkms install nintendo -v 3.1
For joycond, follow the instruction here. We need libevdev. I have installed libinput which depends on libevdev. If these packages are not on your system yet, install them. Otherwise, go ahead with joycond:
sudo pacman -S libevdev
git clone git@github.com:DanielOgorchock/joycond.git
cd joycond
sudo make install
sudo systemctl enable --now joycond
sudo systemctl start --now joycond
Just go to https://gamepad-tester.com/ while the controller is connected. Trying out the buttons on the controller and see if the website can register the controller’s signals.
evdevI followed the instructions in here. You should read the article carefully, it’s full with useful information. I listed the commands I ran here.
Verify controller connection. The devices and the Linux system communicate by reading/writing the device files in /dev. By cating the correct file, which is of the formal /dev/input/eventXXX, we can confirm that we receive the game controller’s signals. If you only connect the controller to the computer recently, then the correct device file will be the one with maximum XXX. Mine is 30, yours will be different.
cat /dev/input/event30
Now, if you tap buttons on your controller, you will see a bunch of nonsense characters in the terminal. If that is the case, you confirmed the communication between the controller and the computer.
Install the python package evdev
pip install evdev
The package evdev comes with a script named evtest.py that allows the decode of various general input devices. Now, unlike cat, the script will spit out the codes of the buttons pressed and values of the analog joysticks.
python <PYTHONSITEPATH>/evdev/evtest.py
ID Device Name Phys Uniq
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0 /dev/input/event30 Lic Pro Controller 40:ec:99:a5:93:20 30:31:7d:2f:1d:5b
Select devices [0-0]: 0
Listening for events (press ctrl-c to exit) ...
time 1612684892.627957 type 3 (EV_ABS), code 16 (ABS_HAT0X), value -1
time 1612684892.627957 --------- SYN_REPORT --------
time 1612684892.777951 type 3 (EV_ABS), code 16 (ABS_HAT0X), value 0
time 1612684892.777951 --------- SYN_REPORT --------
time 1612684893.317963 type 3 (EV_ABS), code 16 (ABS_HAT0X), value 1
time 1612684893.317963 --------- SYN_REPORT --------
time 1612684893.422946 type 3 (EV_ABS), code 16 (ABS_HAT0X), value 0
time 1612684893.422946 --------- SYN_REPORT --------
time 1612684893.992971 type 3 (EV_ABS), code 1 (ABS_Y), value 37663
The PYTHONSITEPATH can be found in the list of sys.path in
python -m site
Save the battery of the controller by disconnect its bluetooth.
bluetoothctl
disconnect