Saitek X52

Obsah

1 INTRODUCTION
2 0) GET READY
3 1) MAKE A COPY OF KERNEL SOURCES
4 2) MODIFY INCRIMINATED FILE
5 3) REBUILD THE KERNEL MODULE
6 4) REPLACE EXISTING MODULE WITH NEW ONE
7 5) REBOOT

INTRODUCTION

You have a multi-button joystick, i.e. Saitek X52 and it doesn't work. Your joystick is shown in:

# dmesg | grep Joy
[    2.508763] generic-usb 0003:06A3:075C.0004: input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Joystick [Saitek Saitek X52 Flight Control System] on usb-0000:00:0b.1-7.4.1/input0

or

# dmesg | grep Sait
[    2.506482] usb 1-7.4.1: Product: Saitek X52 Flight Control System
[    2.506485] usb 1-7.4.1: Manufacturer: Saitek
[    2.508683] input: Saitek Saitek X52 Flight Control System as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.1/usb1/1-7/1-7.4/1-7.4.1/1-7.4.1:1.0/input/input3
[    2.508763] generic-usb 0003:06A3:075C.0004: input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Joystick [Saitek Saitek X52 Flight Control System] on usb-0000:00:0b.1-7.4.1/input0

but doesn't come up i.e. in js_demo. This is apparently due to problem with some 2.6 kernels. They introduced some changes to the kernel, which lead to break in support of multi-button (>32 button) joysticks or Joystick Systems. The easy solution I tested is to replace a single module joydev.ko (instead of rebuilding and reinstalling all kernel) with a repaired and recompiled module.

0) GET READY

I had installed kernel sources and stuff to compile it. You MUST find out what kernel you're using:

# uname -r

...and use exactly this kernel. In my case it's "linux-2.6.31.5-0.1-Desktop" which sources I will copy to "linux-2.6.31.5-OAK". In all cases you must replace my kernel version for yours in all commands bellow. "OAK" is just a suffix to my kernel sources copy - you can use other suffix of course. I.e.:

/usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-0.1-Desktop

for

/usr/src/<YOUR KERNEL VERSION>

1) MAKE A COPY OF KERNEL SOURCES

I copied my current kernel to /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK so that I can modify the sources safely

# cp /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-0.1-Desktop /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK

2) MODIFY INCRIMINATED FILE

Modify the file /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK/drivers/input/joydev.c - remove following lines:

  .flags = INPUT_DEVICE_ID_MATCH_EVBIT |
    INPUT_DEVICE_ID_MATCH_KEYBIT,
  .evbit = { BIT_MASK(EV_KEY) },
  .keybit = { [BIT_WORD(BTN_DIGI)] = BIT_MASK(BTN_DIGI) },

... which are beteween brackets bellow text "}, /* Avoid itouchpads and touchscreens */".

3) REBUILD THE KERNEL MODULE

I followed tutorial (http://en.opensuse.org/Configure,_Build_and_Install_a_Custom_Linux_Kernel for my OpenSUSE) for rebulding the kernel, up to the point where you run "make". This includes few commands:

cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK
# make clean
# make mrproper
# make cloneconfig
# make xconfig

(probably not required for building a module only, but better check the config in xconfig)

... now this is where you would run "make". But instead, build kernel modules for input devices only:

# make SUBDIRS=/usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK/drivers/input/ modules

... this will take some time, cca 5 minutes on my quad machine. When finished, provided it didn't ended up with an "Error #" statement (install whatever you're missing for kernel building then), replace with your new input.ko module the old one:

4) REPLACE EXISTING MODULE WITH NEW ONE

# mv /lib/modules/2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop/kernel/drivers/input/joydev.ko /lib/modules/2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop/kernel/drivers/input/joydev.ko.bak
# cp /usr/src/linux-2.6.31.5-OAK/drivers/input/joydev.ko /lib/modules/2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop/kernel/drivers/input/joydev.ko

5) REBOOT

Reboot and ENJOY! Now when you run (with X52 plugged in :-D) js_demo you should see the joystick and it's reactions:

oak@linux:~> js_demo
Joystick test program.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joystick 0: "Saitek Saitek X52 Flight Control System"
Joystick 1 not detected
Joystick 2 not detected
Joystick 3 not detected
Joystick 4 not detected
Joystick 5 not detected
Joystick 6 not detected
Joystick 7 not detected
+--------------------JS.0----------------------+
| Btns Ax:0 Ax:1 Ax:2 Ax:3 Ax:4 Ax:5 Ax:6 Ax:7 Ax:8 Ax:9 Ax:10 |
+----------------------------------------------+

Note: There is a separate driver for the display on the X52 joystick. This driver only works for all the buttons and axes.

--Oakld 24. 4. 2010, 08:20 (UTC)