How can a gamepad control THE mouse?

There are many questions about this subject:

  • Remapping both mouse and keyboard to a gamepad
  • How do I configure a joystick or gamepad?
  • How to control the mouse pointer via my keyboard?
  • ...

But the purpose of these questions/answers is to be able to use the gamepad for playing a game.

I would like a solution to use the gamepad to control THE mouse.
To replace the mouse by the gamepad in all applications.
That way I could control my computer in the living-room from my couch with a wireless gamepad.


Solution 1:

Following Grumbel's answer, I tried *xboxdrv solution with the support of this website and especially this page:

  1. Install xboxdrv 0.8.2 from Ubuntu Software Center.

    Install also uinput and joydev if needed. I did it this way:

    sudo modprobe uinput
    sudo modprobe joydev
    
  2. Need to know the event of the gamepad:

    Launch udevadm monitor --udev and then plug the game pad:

    $ udevadm monitor --udev
    monitor will print the received events for:
    UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing
    
    UDEV  [6722.377700] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1 (usb)
    UDEV  [6722.383264] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0 (usb)
    UDEV  [6722.383333] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0/0003:046D:C218.0003 (hid)
    UDEV  [6722.383389] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0/0003:046D:C218.0003/hidraw/hidraw1 (hidraw)
    UDEV  [6722.387123] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0/input/input10 (input)
    UDEV  [6722.399284] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0/input/input10/event8 (input)
    UDEV  [6722.412128] add      /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/5-1:1.0/input/input10/js0 (input)
    

    I conclude that my gamepad's event is /dev/input/event8

  3. Display names of every key, axis, button of the gamepad.

    The idea is to launch xboxdrv and test every button and note the result on paper.

    $ sudo xboxdrv --evdev /dev/input/event8 --evdev-debug
    Your Xbox/Xbox360 controller should now be available as:
    /dev/input/js1
    /dev/input/event9
    Press Ctrl-c to quit, use '--silent' to suppress the event output
    EV_ABS ABS_X 128
    EV_ABS ABS_Y 128
    ...
    

    In my case the result is:

    game pad with labels

  4. Set the config file

    Create an xboxdrv-mouse.ini file to set X Y axis and left and right mouse button.

    Here I set gamepad buttons 2 for left mouse button and 3 for right mouse button:

    [xboxdrv]
    evdev=/dev/input/event8
    silent=true
    
    [evdev-absmap]
    ABS_X=x1
    ABS_Y=y1
    
    [ui-axismap]
    x1=REL_X:10
    y1=REL_Y:-10
    
    [evdev-keymap]
    BTN_THUMB=a
    BTN_THUMB2=b
    
    [ui-buttonmap]
    a=BTN_LEFT
    b=BTN_RIGHT
    
    # EOF #
    

    Note that value for REl_X and REL_Y seems to define the speed of the mouse, and by defining a negative value it inverts the axis (see here for REL_Y)

    Another example with more button definition

    [xboxdrv]
    evdev=/dev/input/event8
    silent=true
    
    [evdev-absmap]
    ABS_X=x1
    ABS_Y=y1
    ABS_HAT0X=x2
    ABS_HAT0Y=y2
    
    [ui-axismap]
    x1=REL_X:10
    y1=REL_Y:-10
    x2=KEY_LEFT:KEY_RIGHT
    y2=KEY_DOWN:KEY_UP
    
    [evdev-keymap]
    BTN_TRIGGER=x
    BTN_TOP=y
    BTN_THUMB=a
    BTN_THUMB2=b
    BTN_PINKIE=rt
    BTN_BASE2=rb
    BTN_TOP2=lt
    BTN_BASE=lb
    BTN_BASE3=back
    BTN_BASE4=start
    
    [ui-buttonmap]
    x=KEY_KPENTER
    y=KEY_SPACE
    a=BTN_LEFT
    b=BTN_RIGHT
    rt=KEY_KP8
    rb=KEY_KP2
    lt=KEY_KP6
    lb=KEY_KP4
    back=KEY_LEFTSHIFT
    start=KEY_RIGHTCTRL
    
    # EOF #
    
    
  5. Launch it

    sudo xboxdrv --config xboxdrv-mouse.ini
    

    To avoid launching it with sudo, create a udev rule.

CONCLUSION

It works fine, it's the best solution for me.

Solution 2:

Untested on Ubuntu, but this simple recipe works on Debian Jessie (with my iBuffalo classic usb gamepad):

  1. Install the right xorg module:

    sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-joystick
    
  2. Restart your display manager (or reboot)

Solution 3:

xboxdrv should be able to do what you want. It requires however a bit of configuration to work with non-Xbox gamepads, something along the lines of (check man-page for details, use --evdev-debug to find out the button and axis names):

#!/bin/sh

xboxdrv \
  --evdev /dev/input/event9 \
  --evdev-absmap ABS_X=X1,ABS_Y=y1 \
  --evdev-absmap ABS_HAT0X=dpad_x,ABS_HAT0Y=dpad_y \
  --evdev-keymap BTN_BASE=LB,BTN_BASE2=RB \
  --evdev-keymap BTN_BASE3=guide,BTN_TOP2=start,BTN_PINKIE=back \
  --evdev-keymap BTN_THUMB=x,BTN_TOP=a,BTN_THUMB2=b,BTN_TRIGGER=y \
  \
 --ui-clear \
  --ui-buttonmap rb=BTN_LEFT,lb=BTN_RIGHT,start=KEY_ESC,back=KEY_F1 \
  --ui-buttonmap a=KEY_SPACE \
  --ui-axismap X1=REL_X:20,Y1=REL_Y:20 \
  --ui-axismap DPAD_X=KEY_A:KEY_D:1,DPAD_Y=KEY_W:KEY_S:1 \
  -s "$@"

# EOF #