Does Xbox 360 USB controller work out-of-the-box on Windows/Linux/Mac?

I'm planning buying a wired USB Xbox 360 controller, but I would like to know a bit more about it before actually buying.

Most (all?) USB controllers identify themselves as USB HID (Human Interface Device), which allows them to be auto-configured and work right away, without installing any drivers. It also has the advantage that USB HID devices will (or should) work on any operating system.

But how about the Xbox 360 controller?

• Does it identify itself as USB HID?
• Does it work on Windows without the need of special drivers? (or did Microsoft "cheat" a little by shipping the driver together with Windows?)
• Does it work out-of-the-box on Linux and Mac OS X?

EDIT: Okay, I've bought the controller. Some additional info:

• The controller uses a vendor-specific (0xff) device-class, which means it requires drivers in order to work.
• It works out-of-the-box on Windows 7 and Linux. It requires drivers on Mac OS X and Windows XP. See the answer below for more information.

Solution 1:

In Windows it works out of the box, but if you install this software the Xbox 360 will display a battery indicator on the screen.

In Ubuntu, the Xbox 360 controller works flawlessly with xpad. (I've tried this successfully with a wireless controller)

In Mac, I've found a driver here, but I haven't tried it because I don't own a Mac myself.

Solution 2:

For Mac OS X you will have to download one of the open-source drivers to get all of the features of the controller. As I recall, that was my experience on my Mac. I just double checked, I don't have the driver on anymore so I can't say which version I used (it probably was lost when I did a clean install of a new OS).

Linux will depend on what distribution you have.

Edit: The driver I used before was probably the tattiebogle driver.