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Games Entertainment

Logitech does the Right Thing 73

Posted by Hemos from the more-better-support dept.
x mani x writes "Looks like Logitech has collaborated with Vojtech Pavlik to write linux drivers for all their digital game controllers. All source code and documentation is available. Now I like this company even more ... " Excellent-now if only more companies would get onboard, and recognize the value behind this.
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Logitech does the Right Thing More

Logitech does the Right Thing

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  • Freshmeat and Happy Penguin (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Freshmeat (linked from Slashdot, if you don't already know about it)
    and Happy Penguin (http://www.happypenguin.org/)
    both cover new and improved games. There is at least one flight sim project mentioned at the Penguin recently, and it looked good to me (Don't play flight sims, so I have no idea how to review one)
    Some of the more recent arcade-style GGI and SDL games support joystick too.

    Of course most of the best Free Software games don't use joysticks, but that could all change...

    Nick -- Not a joystick owner
  • I'm also disappointed that Open Hardware hasn't gotten more attention. Since I only want to buy hardware from vendors smart enough to open their specs, I have trouble find hardware that is acceptable.

    As a result, I've been thinking about doing a web-based "hardware shitlist", that is, a listing of hardware vendors and their various levels of friendliness to open systems, e.g. everywhere from Open Hardware-certified hardware with GPL'd or BSD'd driver source, to companies who only provide binary drivers or no Linux or BSD drivers at all and release specs only under NDA, to companies who outright tell linux developers to go screw themselves. What do you think? Would this be a useful resource? If so, I will begin implementation shortly (read: after finals).

    Thanks,
    ccg
  • I wrote a small program called joy2key [umass.edu] which takes joystick events and translates them into keyboard events. It works in both X and the console, and is great for games...
  • You said: So I can't go and buy a NEW camera (or, in my case, lots of them) and ship a bunch of web cams, can i?

    The information on my page is still correct. Nothing made after the Quickcam 2 is supported (yet). Sorry. There are still QC2's available refurbished, and they work well with cqcam and other available drivers.

    The latest news is that there is a QCVC/QCPro driver under development. It will be binary-only under NDA (unless Logitech changes their minds about that) and should be available RSN. I'm not doing the development, so I can't give a date. Watch the Quickcam Third Party Drivers mailing list [crynwr.com] or my Quickcam pages for announcements.

    --Patrick

  • You said: The Powers That Be will not release the information needed for mpeg (I believe) encoding, at least not for free.

    There are free MPEG encoders out there. Cqcam doesn't support movies because I haven't had the time to add support, and no one else has contributed it.

    All useful AVI and MOV formats (e.g., Indeo, Cinepak, or Sorensen) are under NDA, so those won't be supported. There are some simple (basically uncompressed) formats for AVI. Those aren't really worth supporting.

    If anyone wants to contribute MPEG movie generation for cqcam, I'd be happy to work it in.

    --Patrick

  • You said: they have someone write a binary only kernel module uder NDA

    The "someone" is Dale Whitfield, and he is actually not associated with Logitech in any way. He got specs from Connectix to write an OS/2 driver for the Quickcam VC, and I've talked him into porting the driver to Linux. (I've also been helping a little bit with the effort.) Logitech has nothing to do with this driver.

    You also said: binary only drivers suck

    While I agree, I contend that they're better than nothing in this case. (There's no point in trying to convince Dale to release the source; he would if he could. Bug Logitech to drop the NDA.) If you disagree, don't use them.

    --Patrick

  • Posted by Nr9:

    to me, logitech seems like the microsoft of the pointing device of business. they have rarely innovated and they like to copy designs of small companies, for example, kensington orbit....
    their "innovations" were ergonomically bad(small, rsi-inducing trackballs that an user is supposed to operate with the thumb... logitech just spends less money on ergonomic R&D and more money on marketing and manufacturing
  • I'd like to e-mail Logitech and tell them what a good move this is, and that it should keep me buying Logitech products. Anyone have an address for them? I would go through their customer support thing, but it just asks too many danged questions.

    Anyway, way to go Logitech!
  • Now can we get them to get the Internet Keyboard working under XFree86?
  • this would mean something. Personally, I'm tired of Doom & Quake (I&II), under Linux. I want a good flight sim or something. Unfortunately, I'm not a coder, so all I can do it bitch. ;-) What good is a joystick driver without games to play with a joystick?

    -Rev. Randy

  • I have had nothing but trouble with any mouse that isn't Logitech. They make good solid quality parts that don't gum up with crap as much as the competition.

    The only exceptions are the stupid cordless mice.
    The seem subject to too much RFI and the balls are
    too small for a stable pointing device. Of course, I have never liked a track ball in my life. My thumb is too unstable and it requires too much thumb motion to operate at lower acceleration, making me weary.

    I never liked their hand-scanners though, a flatbed is a far better proposition.
  • With their mouse drivers diabling my modem under Windows (not that solving that is very hard) a few more eyes on the driver code probably wont hurt.

    Now I only need the games to make use of my joystick, huh? ;)
  • This is good news. Let's hope Logitech will apply for Open Hardware [openhardware.org] certification for these controllers. Open Hardware is a good initiative that unfortunately hasn't received much attention so far.
  • i have a microsoft wheel mouse, windows 95 or windows 98 detects it as a logitech mouse and install lmouse.drv, if i force it to use the MS IntelliMouse driver, i have a warning saying it might not be compatible :)
    it seems MS likes logitech :) because they cannot recognize their mouse properly hahahaha
    --
  • On the subject of Logitech mice with wheels ...

    Check http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll /

    This site has a lot of information on how to use that wheel in X. Works fine with my First Mouse+ (and my cordless desktop with wheel)
  • Some cow wrote:
    >What value?

    Logitech sells the hardware. Anytime there's a driver that lets more people *use* your hardware, thet's a good thing. I (obviously) won't buy a Logitech product if it won't work on my system. I might buy that same product if there was a driver for my OS.
  • There's a good explanation of how to set things up here [inria.fr]. The new Gnome stuff (and I assume that this comes from GTK 1.2?) handles the wheel automagically. It's nice.
  • Check out flightgear [flightgear.org]. Site seems pretty slow today, but there are mirrors listed.
  • I didn't have the form when I posted earlier. This is what I got, it says to return it to customer_support@logitech.com, sending a fax would probably be a good way to go, too.

    Here's what I got from Logitech:

    =========

    If you feel that we
    should provide hardware/software support for a particular operating
    environment, please complete and return the attached form. These forms
    are instrumental in determining the operating environments for which
    we need to focus our resources. We thank you for your help in this
    process and your interest in our products.

    ************************************************ **********************
    Logitech Customer Support REQUEST FOR OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
    PRODUCT SUPPORT
    NAME: __________________________________________________ ______________
    ADDRESS: __________________________________________________ ___________
    CITY/ST/ZIP: __________________________________________________ _______
    PHONE NUMBER: __________________________________________________ ______
    FAX NUMBER: __________________________________________________ ________
    EMAIL ADDRESS: __________________________________________________ _____
    LOGITECH HARDWARE PRODUCT: Product Name: __________________________________________________ ______
    Product Model: __________________________________________________ ___
    Product Serial: __________________________________________________ __
    LOGITECH SOFTWARE PRODUCT: Product Name: __________________________________________________ ______
    Product Version: __________________________________________________ _
    OPERATING ENVIRONMENT: Operating System Name: _______________________________________________
    Operating System Versio: ___________________________________________
    RETURN TO: Customer_Support @ Logitech.com LOGITECH, INC., ATTN:
    CUSTOMER SUPPORT DEPARTMENT 6505 Kaiser Drive Fremont, CA 94555
    FAX: (510) 505-0978

    If you have additional questions, please return to
    http://www.logitech.globalsupport.com/ and submit a new question.

    Thank you for choosing Logitech.

  • It's strange - some of the Logitech folks have been active on the Linux USB list, and they seem to be generally helpful for the mice and keyboards... but the video people are still stonewalling. I went ahead and bought a QuickCam VC USB because I *hate* the parallel port kludges, but it's not supported by Linux because Logitech won't share any information without an NDA (as I understand it.)

    I have a form that they sent me to "request operating system support." If anyone's interested, mail me (de-spam my address) and I'll send you a copy. Not sure if it'd be binary-only support, or what, but it might be worth a shot.

  • IMPORTANT IDEA (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Friday April 16, 1999 @10:02AM (#1930220) Homepage
    Someone--perhaps Slashdot--needs to sponsor a "Thank You" page, from which Linux users can easily send short, positive feedback to those companies who support Linux by releasing specs, developing drivers, open sourcing their old code, and so on.

    If this feedback were publicly viewable for a period of time AND an invitation to view the response were sent to other companies, the effect would be multiplied.

    Slashdot 'em with love, basically.

    Imagine: Logitech releases drivers for their gaming hardware. Cool. A pile of "Thank You" notes collects at their door. The video guys at Logitech are asked to check out the success of their co-workers; and so are the guys at Matrox; and at Toshiba; and at [name a closed-source company here]; and so on.

    A couple weeks later, someone other company does something for us. We thank them, and let all their competitors know it. And so on...

    It would be a powerful way of getting companies on-side.
  • QuickCam drivers already exist - cqcam is probably the best around. However the movie functionality doesn't exist since The Powers That Be will not release the information needed for mpeg (I believe) encoding, at least not for free.



  • You miss the point. The source is available, now anyone can write a driver for BeOS or whatever...maybe even you could do it yourself.
  • Hooray too!
    I bought one Logitech mouse last week, it must have been a premonition.

  • Ok, its pretty cool.. but I want drivers for BeOS.
  • Cool! This means there is hope for the Quickcam VC that I foolishly bought ages ago. Yay!
  • Great move! I work for a major catalog computer reseller and will do my tiny part to support them by pushing their products above all others.I not only vote with my wallet...I vote with other peoples wallets !!
  • This rocks!! Nothing gets marketing peoples attention faster than people saying they are going to buy the product.Money talks.
  • Bugging them doesn't seem to help. I've sent several emails to their tech support regarding my Quickcam VC that I also foolishly bought a while back. I actually sent the first email when it was still Connectix and have sent two since Logitech bought out the cameras. I have a REGISTERED product and never received a response from their customer support. The least they could have done was write me back saying, "Sorry, we have no plans to support you."
  • Congrats to Logitech, they've always been a favorite of mine and it feels good to see them being attentive to the needs of their customers.

    Of course, I never use my Wingman Warrior that's collecting dust in the corner but it's nice to know it's going to be a possibility.
  • Here's a Business Wire [linuxtoday.com] blurb story about Logitech's decision.


    Also mentions USB mouse support.
  • Finally! I can make full use of my Extreme Digital; support under NT... sucks.

    Now, if only I could trade in my Win-version of Unreal for an OpenGL-Linux version, it'd be bliss. :-)
  • First you say they don't innovate, then you give an example that no one else produces. And for other examples, look at their new Trackman Marble FX, which is not a thumb oriented trackball.

    Personally, I don't can how egronomically bad other claim their trackman trackballs are, I would swear by them.
  • are you saying that you can draw with a mouse? i don't believe you, unless "drawing" is limited to stick figures =)

  • I just picked up a refurbished Connectix QuickCam from Computer Geeks [compgeeks.com] for $39. It plugs into the parallel port and I found drivers [virginia.edu] for linux which work quite nicely. (I recommend cqcam).
  • What's high risk about it? All they're doing is moving to make their products usable on more platforms. I don't see what the risk is in expanding your market.
  • Now only if Creative and EMU would get that message too...

  • They make the only decent mice anyway, anything else other than logitech just sucks,

    finally got my pilot mouse middle button working proparily. I can secure the keyboard again

    HOORAY !
  • Actually I think it's the other way around. They hired somebody to write the SB-Live drivers (binary only I'm afriad), but the guy they happened to hire was from the GGI project and showed them what it was all about, and Creative decided to get him to write video drivers aswell.
    That was a few months ago, I have no idea how they're coming along now.
  • i think logitech sucks. they do not release
    documentation for their quickcam VC. they have
    someone write a binary only kernel module uder NDA, but binary only drivers suck. recomendation:
    do not buy anything from logitech until they make a REAL commitment to open source.
  • no bugging them does not seem to help. so the only language their marketing department will understand is if we all boycot their products. all protducts for that matter.
  • ummm...dude...its just driver source...chill
  • i think thats an execellant idea...rob?
  • I have one of those mice with the little wheel on it. It is a logitech. Do they or will they make a Linux driver for that? Or is that something that, say KDE, has to work in to the window manager?

    ~BR
  • I agree, lets get on it.
    At the other end, are there any campaigns or concerted efforts to get some others to open up?
    I am tired of getting form letter responses from ATI and Kensington (my trackball only has 2 functional buttons) telling me there are no plans to support anything other than windows.
    i am most certainly interested. Can someone organize or point me in the right direction>?
  • Didnt Creative hire someone from the ggi-project to write drivers for their graphics cards? Now if they do that, they will also provide SB-drivers. Although they might be binary drivers (which would be a shame for the funny-hardware-crowd, but better than no driver at all).
  • I think FlightGear is shaping up to be more realistic than MFS. Something I really want to keep my eyes on, as an aviation fan :)
  • The resident campus Quake god around here uses a trackball (one of the big Logitech deals). I'd think they'd actually be pretty good for Quaking with sufficient training. You can turn precisely and in a hurry.

    You can't draw with a trackball, and you can't Quake with a digitizing pad, so for me it's the good ol' mouse.

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