Joystick not functioning

[jao]

Hello!

I'm unable to get my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro to function in KSP: neither the buttons on it nor the axes are detected when I try to bind them to commands. I'm new to Linux, but after doing some research online it sounds like the joystick should essentially be plug-and-play. Any thoughts on how I might fix it? Thank you in advance for your help!

[sal_vager]

Hi jao, please make sure your stick is working in jstest, and make sure you have it plugged in before starting KSP.

If that doesn't help please put your player.log and hardinfo log on mediafire or dropbox for us, you can find info on how these in the support stickies

[jao]

Thank you so much for your reply sal_vager! When I say I'm new to Linux, I am new to Linux: how exactly do I install jstest? I downloaded the file from here, but when I try compiling I get errors that my sigc++-2.0 and x11 packages are not found. Apologies for the basic question, but I greatly appreciate your help!

[sal_vager]

Hehe I'm no expert with Fedora, I have to google that stuff

I assume jstest is in the Fedora repository, there's good info on installing packages here.

If it is not there there is likely an alternative, if you search for "joystick" PackageKit should show you what is available.

You really just need to verify that your stick is detected and working.

Also, please paste the contents of your Player.log and KSP.log to a paste site such as pastebin.com or hastebin.com, then post the URL's here so I can see if KSP is detecting your controller.

[Esme]

Jao, your distro, whatever it is will have something called a software manager or package manager; use that to search for the file you want to install and install it from there. You do NOT need to try compiling things for yourself these days unless it's an arcane piece of software that hasn't made it into most repositories (and joystick stuff is in the reporitories of all major distros these days). If you're used to the Windows paradigm of 'search for it on teh net then download it' you need to forget that and instead search for it in your package manager - it has access to known safe copies of software, will check for any supporting files needed, and automatically install them along with the file you actually need. MUCH less hassle than havingto compile things. In fact, in a dozen years of using Linux, I've only had to compile software once, and that was about 10 years ago. Which distro are you using, our of curiosity?

[jao]

sal_vager: Still finding a joystick package, but in the meantime here is my KSP.log; my Player.log is too large for pastebin.com or hastebin.com, what specifically do you need from it? Both my KSP.log and my Player.log have a line "Joystick Names:" with no entries, that doesn't seem good.

Esme: I'm running Fedora 22 essentially straight out of the box. I was able to use the program "Packages" to install "linuxconsoletools-1.4.8-1.fc22", which includes the following files:

/usr/bin/ffcfstress

/usr/bin/ffmvforce

/usr/bin/ffset

/usr/bin/fftest

/usr/bin/inputattach

/usr/bin/jscal

/usr/bin/jscal-restore

/usr/bin/jscal-store

/usr/bin/jstest

/usr/lib/udev/js-set-enum-leds

/usr/libexec/joystick/extract

/usr/libexec/joystick/filter

/usr/libexec/joystick/ident

/usr/share/doc/linuxconsoletools

/usr/share/doc/linuxconsoletools/COPYING

/usr/share/doc/linuxconsoletools/NEWS

/usr/share/doc/linuxconsoletools/README

/usr/share/man/man1/ffcfstress.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/ffmvforce.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/ffset.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/fftest.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/inputattach.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/jscal-restore.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/jscal-store.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/jscal.1.gz

/usr/share/man/man1/jstest.1.gz

However, I'm unsure how to actually run this software, any suggestions? I apologize for the naive question, I'm sure it's something simple I'm missing. Thank you for your help!

[sal_vager]

You should be able to run jstest from the command line, jscal to calibrate, but it may be that you need another package first, as it looks like joystick drivers were moved to a module in Fedora 18, I don't know if this is still the case for Fedora 22 but you could take a look here.

[jao]

Hi sal_vager,

I succesfully ran "sudo yum install kernel-modules-extra" and "sudo yum install joystick" as suggested in the "fedora 18 joystick not working" post you linked to, but the "jstest --event /dev/input/js0" still returns "No such file or directory" (I also tried it with js1 and js2). I finally figured out that my joystick was mapped to /dev/input/event6, but running "jstest --normal /dev/input/event6" returns

Driver version is 0.8.0.

jstest is not fully compatible with your kernel. Unable to retrieve button map!

Joystick (Unknown) has 2 axes and 2 buttons.

Testing ... (interrupt to exit)

jstest: error reading: Invalid argument

I installed jstest via my Package Manager, not sure why there would be a mismatch with my kernel. Any suggestions for how to resolve it?

Not sure if it's useful, but "lsusb" returns "Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c215 Logitech, Inc. Extreme 3D Pro", and "dmesg | grep usb" returns "[ 3.955825] input: Logitech Logitech Extreme 3D as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-5/1-5:1.0/0003:046D:C215.0001/input/input9" and "[ 3.955935] logitech 0003:046D:C215.0001: input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.10 Joystick [Logitech Logitech Extreme 3D] on usb-0000:00:14.0-5/input0", so it would at least seem that Linux is at least detecting the joystick.

Thank you again for taking the time to help me!

- - - Updated - - -

Just tried the joystick in Kerbal, and it's working now! The only remaining problem is the throttle axis, it can only control the throttle between 0 and 50% thrust (when the throttle control on the joystick is at maximum the vessel throttle is only at 50%). Seems like the sort of thing that would be fixed in jscal, but "jscal /dev/input/event6" returns "jscal: error getting version: Invalid argument". Is there a place it can be fixed in the game itself?

[sal_vager]

Try setting the throttle to 50% before starting KSP, there used to be an issue in Ubuntu where the throttle would not be accurately detected and this is how we got around it.

Also try binding the throttle to the "Incremental" axis in Settings, sometimes that works better.

As for jstest, I can't even find it for Fedora, but as long as you have something that shows the stick works, which you now do, and as it now works in KSP then jstest can be ignored.

I'm going to mark this as solved, and add the Fedora joystick info to the Linux thread

[jao]

Setting the throttle control around 50% before starting KSP does allow the full range of throttle, but there's a large dead zone between 33% and 66% power: by slowly and smoothly moving the control, the throttle setting behaves as expected from 0% to 33%, but then jumps to 66% and continues smoothly to 100%.

I'll continue to investigate and post here if I'm able to solve it. Thank you again for all your help, saved me a lot of hassle!