enable external mouse and keyboard to be redirected to VM

[BloodshedRomance]

I don't quite know where the problem i'm having here lays.. I'm pretty sure its a steam-os limitation. (i'm running the preview build).

I have a windows 10 VM running through Boxes (the VM manager) and Boxes has options to redirect USB devices to the VM. My dongle devices including the Elgato Stream Deck show and redirect to the VM as intended. But the mouse and keyboard (specifically Ducky shine mini, and Steelseries Aerox 9 wireless, running wired) do not show in the list to be redirected.

I believe that this is a steam deck limitation but am not certain its not a Boxes issue. Having this functionality would allow gaming mouse (or keyboard) software to run on the windows VM and therefore be able to configure RGB, custom buttons, macros, etc without having to use another machine to do it.

Granted, this is a pretty clunky way to do it, I still believe it would be useful. Even at the cost of about 20GB of drive space. Also I know this is pushing the deck far beyond its intended use but thats why I love it so much.

https://preview.redd.it/p9m33aevt1f91.png?width=643&format=png&auto=webp&s=204c96a1338b112d5f680eb7c4e54565a73bbfc6

[Prezidentas]

It could be due to flatpak limitations or something...

[BloodshedRomance]

No, I installed the full version of gnome-boxes. Not the flatpak version.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by MehBloodshedRomance:

No, I installed the full version of gnome-boxes. Not the flatpak version.

well then I don't see how it could be SteamOS fault. Probably boxes has a filter since 99% of people wouldn't want their mouse captured. Virtualbox on windows and on Linux doesn't show it either.

[BloodshedRomance]

Will look into this later
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/656725/how-to-passthrough-usb-mouse-to-virtualbox-vm

[BloodshedRomance]

i've tried many solutions to get virtualbox running to no avail.
The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
available for the current kernel (5.13.0-valve21-1-neptune-02209-g2a5bdc1102a0) or it failed to
load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

sudo /sbin/vboxconfig

You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.



VMware also has its own problems.
Could not find all required packages:
libxcrypt-compat (Wanted by: vmware-workstation)

[Prezidentas]

virtualbox won't show you mouse in the menu either. perhaps it would be possible by writing the usb adress manually.
In any case, it's probably easier to experiment in a regular Linux PC than the Deck running SteamOS...

[BloodshedRomance]

i'm more familiar with ubuntu but not an expert by any means. So i'm basically trying to learn a ton about arch which I can kind of translate to steam os... but its a process. Thats why my first line in this thread was I don't quite know where the problem lies. I run unraid with 7 VMs, 2 of them gaming capable with separated peripherals but its designed to do that kind of thing. Thats what leads me to think its software related but I don't know if its on the VM manager side or the firmware side.

The other option here is to dual-boot windows which I've seen some people do but thats a whole separate layer of complexity. I'd prefer to just be able to boot the vm, make the changes, then shut it back down than reboot the whole deck to windows then back. But this is turning out to be harder than I expected to accomplish.

Gnome-Boxes boots and runs windows and I can redirect usb devices to it at will but not the mouse and keyboard. Thats where i'm stuck currently.