I used to use linux decades ago, then stopped for multiple reasons. Now, with win 10 eol fast approaching, I have installed Kubuntu 24.04.2 mainly for VR gaming but other gaming and normal pc use as well. I have 2 devices I would like to replace for ones with full linux support(~~drivers~~ software), unless there are ~~drivers~~ software that are easy to install not requiring compilation from source. The devices are a Microsoft Intellipoint Trackball, basically a thumb driven trackball with at least as many buttons (more is better) as the image shows.
The second device is a Logitec G13
I use this for most of my flat games, and to control my video player. Suggestions for similar hardware or easy fully functional drivers would be appreciated. ie; the g13 has game profiles, stopwatch, clock, system monitor, and a few things I don't use, the trackball has all 7 buttons programmable to anything on the kb and then some.
Except to program the buttons
I will check this out
Hopefully will work for me too
not games, other than the profile layout, but system monitors in windows display on it.
Will check this out as well, the display stuff I could learn to live without, if it will let me program the buttons I will be happy.
in windows you can also change profiles by pressing the little round button on the top left, but need the display to see what game is selected
No, like...okay. How do I best put this?
"Driver" software is going to be software designed to talk directly to hardware.
In Linux, if you go looking for "driver software microsoft trackball", you probably won't generally find what you're looking for to bind things to mouse buttons.
In Windows, it's common for you to buy a device and for it to be bundled with some software written by the device vendor. That's because the device vendor is writing the software to sell their product. They're selling you a package of software and the device, and they're bundling the software specifically because they want the hardware to sell. While technically the "driver" part is only the bit that talks directly to the hardware, and often there's a lot of other software bundled, it's not uncommon to use "driver" more-colloquially to just refer to all the bundled software.
In Linux, while sometimes vendors do release proprietary software with their hardware, you're more-likely to be using software from some open-source projects. Those projects don't care about how some specific piece of hardware does in the market. They just want the functionality to be available everywhere. So unless a piece of hardware is truly unique or requires some way of specially interfacing with it, you're more-likely to be using a software package that works with many different pieces of hardware. They won't call it a "driver".
In general, for things like mice, the hardware-level stuff is all in the kernel already, because the USB standard already defines how those devices need to act to present their extra buttons; it's not necessary to add additional special software to talk to the hardware. Instead, you're just looking for a piece of software that can send a series of keypresses or whatever when you click a button, something like antimicrox.
Fair enough. Just wanted to moderate expectations. I vaguely recall that Logitech had some other full-size "gamer keyboard" in the past that had a text display with some sort of game integration. I think I remember Teamspeak integration being on the list.
kagis
I don't think that this was it; what I'm remembering was an older keyboard, but:
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Programmable-Gaming-Keyboard-Display/dp/B001NXDBI6
I'm guessing that the VoIP there is talking about Teamspeak, and they mention "game stats".
And I don't think that there's an out-of-box way to have something like that running under Linux for your G13 and displaying specific-game-relevant information.
So yeah, software package, I mean the trackball is working (main 3 buttons) but not the side 2 (I now have a few suggestions to try out to keep these old favs runnin tho I am willing to purchase new ones). I have been in the windows world so long now that, as you said, I use drivers and software for a device interchangeably cause that's what I've been seeing in windows, when I dl the "drivers" for my trackball the interface is part of it, same with the G13. It is amazing what you forget in 20 yrs of not thinking about it