How do get the Logitech G29 (xbox ver) to work on Linux with Steam?

[黑芝麻]

I have this issue where the my OS detects my Steering wheel and my gearbox, when i try using it steam games only the wheel works and not the gearbox.
This:
https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad
does detect my steering wheel but when i launch steam it says "no controller detected" and my gearbox doesnt work in any Steam games.

Distro: Fedora 38

[Tony Pond]

Linux G29 user here but I have the Play Station version of the G29 and have not had your issue. Isn't the XBox version called the G920 ?

So I can only mention a couple of things which may/may not help.

I use "jstest-gtk" to check that all the axis and buttons (including gearbox) are detected and are available via the kernel:

* https://github.com/Grumbel/jstest-gtk

There is a Mode switch on the wheel to switch between PS3 & PS4, that needs to be on the correct one (PS3 mode, there is no feature difference it just controls the data format to the wheel) or it doesn't work (might be something similar on the XBox version).

I use the new-lg4ff kernel module, but that is not compatible with the G920 apparently:

* https://github.com/berarma/new-lg4ff

The new-lg4ff driver just adds a few features missing from the standard kernel drivers and I don't think those features are used by DR2 (I think it just simulates them straight into the wheel rotation/feedback).

So if the kernel is recognising your wheel and all buttons are working then that leave 3 pieces of software that'll be causing the issue:

* Wine/Proton
* SDL 2
* Steam controller


If you have protontricks installed you can display the windows joystick control panel and check that the buttons are working in that:

protontricks -c 'wine control joy.cpl' 690790

Where 690790 is the Steam ID for Dirt Rally 2, which you can find on the Properties dialogue box for DR2 on the Updates tab. (Its possible this value changes per release region).

This Wine/Windows control panel is also good for trouble shooting force feedback, as not all versions of Proton have it (or work out of the box with it).

I'm currently using Proton 8.0-3 and the feedback works fine.

For Steam I needed to make sure than none of the Controllers are active for DR2, various combinations of "Disable Steam Input" so that the Wheel is not detected as a Controller for Steam (this is more about being a controller for the user interface of steam and to stop steam remapping the wheel into a virtual controller which stop DR2 detecting the wheel directly). In fact in the global Steam Settings I have Steam Input disabled for all controllers. (This is definitely the oddest part of Steam, in that it needs to detect the wheel but not use it...)

If you run Steam directly from the console (or DR2 from the console) it should spew out loads of information plus whether Steam finds your wheel.


SDL 2 is the dark horse here, it may not be seeing the G920 as a wheel (type SDL_JOYSTICK_TYPE_WHEEL) and mapping it to SDL_JOYSTICK_TYPE_UNKNOWN. As you can see there is lots of activity on the new-lg4ff support thread circling this issue for the new G Pro Racing wheel which is similar (it has G923 compatibility mode which is the PC version of the G920):

* https://github.com/berarma/new-lg4ff/issues/82

However this reddit thread suggest the G920 should be working:

* https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/zxdei3/steering_wheel/


Hope that helps, or points you to something that will!