Linux

48074 readers

930 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Using the WiiMote as a mouse (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am running Pop_OS! and want to set up an old WiiMote I have lying around as a mouse. I have a USB-sensor bar, and I don't have any issues connecting the remote to the computer, and the inputs seems to register just fine when running xwiishow 1 after the remote is connected. I am also able to use it perfectly fine as a WiiMote in the Dolphin emulator.

Now, I want it to function as a mouse, and being a fairly new Linux user, this is where I get confused. I am not entirely sure what I need to have happen in order to make this work, but I realize there must be some translation of the IR-sensor data and some way for Pop_OS! to understand that this should be a mouse.

When searching for it, a lot of different names are thrown around, so I am not entirely sure what I should be looking for. However, from the ArchWiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Wiimote) it seems I have three choices:

MoltenGamepad (https://github.com/jgeumlek/MoltenGamepad), but this seems to only handle button presses? This is also something I would like, i.e. mapping buttons to Pause/Play media. But it is not the only thing I want, and mouse movement + clicks is higher in priority.
An X11 input driver - this I have tried to install according to the instructions on their GitHub-page (https://github.com/xwiimote/xf86-input-xwiimote), but failed to do so. The last commit to this project was back in 2014. The ArchWiki states:

"xf86-input-xwiimote has support for mouse-emulation via IR using the Option "MotionSource" "ir""

... which is what I want, but then also directly underneath:

"There is currently no user-space application that enables mouse-emulation with the IR-sensor. If you need that, you should consider using the no longer supported cwiid approach. However, the xwiimote tools are under heavy development and will soon support IR mouse-emulation, too. "

... which confuses me.

cwiid is also listed as an approach on the ArchWiki, but they also say that it should not be used since it is discontinued.

I'm sure the main issue here is a knowledge gap on my part, so if there is a solution that seems obvious to any of you, I would greatly appreciate the help in both getting this to work and in understanding my system better.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I tried that, but nothing really happened (i.e. no output). hid-wiimote is one of several things I couldn't fit into the whole picture I was trying to create for myself. I figured that, since I got it connected and could see the sensor data from the xwiishow command from xwiimote, that the module was loaded and I didn't need to pay more attention to it.