Anyone know the status of this kernel driver? I haven't been able to find any activity on it since last October.

@ZLima12 Here is my latest submission to the mailing list: https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-input/msg65088.html

There are some changes to the driver I still need to make (mostly involving the accel/gyro support).

Hi, the driver has been accepted for Linux 5.10 and it would be nice to at least make sure that the Steam implementation doesn't conflict with the hid-nintendo module.

Linux 5.10 is coming out very soon and this is still an issue.

Linux kernel 5.10 (just now installed it on my system) is out and this is still not fixed. Please please please, valve, can you get steam to detect the switch pro controller without conflicts with the kernel driver. I don't know that much about programming but considering all other fantastic things you've achieved for linux gaming, surely this little tiny issue can not be that complicated? Many thanks.

Perhaps the steam client can run modinfo hid-nintendo. This command will produce a non-zero exit status if the module can't be found. If it does this, the steam client may use it's own driver. Otherwise, the kernel driver should be loaded automatically when a controller is connected.

Whatever is implemented will ultimately be temporary since 5.10 is the new LTS kernel.

@clarfonthey unfortunately, hid-nintendo didn't make it into 5.10. So anyone on LTS is not going to have it.

Oh. :(

Well, either way, I do think that this would be appropriate to implement. If anything, Steam should be compatible with the module.

Absolutely. I've been using hid-nintendo for a month or two now and it works great. Plug and play for a lot of (most?) games, particularly those that use SDL. Don't have any complaints about it. Having the Steam client use it when available would by far be the preferred behavior.

Does Valve have any plan to prioritise this?

Would be nice to get a response from Valve.

I have problems getting a pro controller to work and I am not sure where I should report my problem. What's the current status of hid-nintendo? Is it in the kernel by now? Is what I experience a result of the conflict?

I am on Arch Linux, generally latest versions of everything and running Steam in the "native" version.

The following is what jstest-gtk shows me for the controller with Steam's "Switch Pro Configuration Support" option unselected.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/931051/115167915-7fe46300-a0b9-11eb-86a1-8dbe7d45df8e.mp4

The only thing that is responsive here is axis two, although that should have been axis 1.

After enabling Switch pro con support in the settings, jstest-gtk shows me an additional fake(?) xbox 360 controller shows no inputs in "Properties". However, the right analog stick is translated to mouse movement and the left stick is translated to arrow keys.

Ori and the Blind Forest just works, but Trine 2 seemingly picks up the erratic garbage inputs and automatically selects items on the menu, after which it eventually cycles the "escape" menu in-game until I unplug it.

The launcher itself is also quite irritated by it.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/931051/115168193-5aa42480-a0ba-11eb-9667-994d23d25d40.mp4

I would like to say that the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller via Bluetooth doesn't work in some games with the hid-nintendo driver, but they work using Steam driver.

For example, No Man's Sky (using Proton) doesn't detects my controller if I use the firejail ... --blacklist=/sys/class/hidraw/ ... trick, so I need to use the Steam driver.

(However, I need to disable rumble in order to use the controller more than several minutes into the game before disconnecting.)

FWIW I also have the same problem with Blue Fire -- I had to use the Steam Input version of the driver when the hid-nintendo one usually works. I haven't ever encountered this issue in a native game, though, and it is likely an issue in Proton that affects a few games. Properly supporting hid-nintendo would be the proper fix for this IMHO, and not a reason to continue the existing behaviour.

The best fix, I think, should be to let the user choose the driver he/she wants to use in every case.

Uh, no… drivers aren't supposed to work that way. You use the proper driver for hardware, end of story; the only reason why steam should make up its own driver for Switch Pro controllers is if the system doesn't support it. There's still the option to enable or disable Steam Play for a controller, but that doesn't actually change the drivers, just how their inputs are processed in the game.

There's a reason we're not seeing action on this. Because of the fact that hid-nintendo has not been accepted into the mainline kernel yet, we shouldn't be expecting any updates in this issue from Valve.

Yes, dkms-hid-nintendo is wondeful, quite stable, and it works really really well. But it's not included by default in any distro kernels, and is a userspace-breaking change, which should not be taken lightly by Valve.

For now I've added a workaround for this problem to the joycond daemon.
See the arch wiki for an explanation.

hid-nintendo is coming to Linux 5.16.

It released.

Can't believe it's been two years already since I started following this, and finally it's in. Would love to see Steam support it natively now.

Connecting a Switch Pro Controller to Steam on Linux could be a lot easier if this was supported :+1:

So Steam Input's implementation of the Pro controller driver simply just breaks now with the mainline kernel. Random disconnects. You either need to disable to kernel driver or disable config support in Steam to get the controller to function properly.
Please adapt your implementation to work with 5.16.

Something new about fixing conflict between kernel driver and steam driver ?

We're in a transtionary period between distros using the old hidraw method to access switch controllers, and the new method inside the kernel that happened with 5.16's hid-nintendo.

Valve, being on kernel 5.13 right now, will need roughly six to twelve months before this situation is really resolved. This is not a small change, and has multiple points of pain right now in regards to useability. For instance, all third-party switch controllers seem to have problems with hid-nintendo.

This one will take patience, though I'm sure patches are welcome.

I don't know if Valve intends to support kernel modules.
hid-playstation (introduced in Linux 5.12) for example should be enabled on SteamOS, but it's not.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/746

This is still not fixed by the latest Steam Beta (which claims to add support for other Switch related controllers).
It's not a good thing that the option Switch Pro Configuration Support still has a lie in its description: "Note: This setting must be disabled for Switch Pro Controllers to work in games not launched through Steam while Steam is running".

It seems that the issue has been fixed: I played the entirety of Aperture Desk Job with no issue, and I can use the controller outside Steam even when Switch Pro Configuration Support is active.
Tested through USB. Didn't use joycond. My user is in the input group.
EDIT: Nevermind about working outside Steam, it depends on the game.

I have test it using the lasted steam beta on manjaro running kernel 6.1.1 and the pro controller is not detected by steam.
But evtest and jstest has detect the controller and it seems to work.

$ evtest
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Not running as root, no devices may be available.
Available devices:
....
/dev/input/event24:	Nintendo Switch Pro Controller
/dev/input/event25:	Nintendo Switch Pro Controller IMU

$ jstest /dev/input/js0
Driver version is 2.1.0.
Joystick (Nintendo Switch Pro Controller) has 6 axes (X, Y, Rx, Ry, Hat0X, Hat0Y)
and 14 buttons (BtnA, BtnB, BtnX, BtnY, BtnZ, BtnTL, BtnTR, BtnTL2, BtnTR2, BtnSelect, BtnStart, BtnMode, BtnThumbL, BtnThumbR).
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Axes:  0:  -145  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off

Have testing both steam-runtime and steam-native.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/6651#issuecomment-1377834119

You don't have joycond installed do you? If so, it has udev rules to prevent steam from seeing the hidraw devices for the controller.

I do not have joycond installed.
I also have test the firejail command from the arch wiki.

firejail --noprofile --blacklist=/sys/class/hidraw/ steam

But this has also not fix the issue.

I am running steam from a second gaming user, using the wayland session from my main user. Could this be the issue?
The gaming user is member of the input group.
The test above were executed with this gaming user.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/6651#issuecomment-1377937883

@DanielOgorchock could you elaborate? I have tried removing joycond but then my controller would no longer be detected by any means, with or without Steam, wireless or wired.

I have also tried running Steam via firejail --noprofile --blacklist=/sys/class/hidraw/ steam -oldbigpicture with and without the latest beta client, on a Switch pro controller (wireless and wired) and Joy cons, combined or separate.

My issue is the same as the one reported on https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8862 and https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/8273 but that issue seems to be going nowhere, so I figured I'd ask here instead.

Steam does not detect my Switch Pro Controller if I try to connect it with L + R. If I connect it by pressing minus and plus, it detects it alright, but thinks it's a Joy-Con. I am unsure whether this has anything to do with the gyro not working.

Joy-Cons can be connected to Steam alright by holding L + R but, again, the gyro appears not to work.

I can see the gyro working via jstest-gtk and I can use the Switch Pro Controller for Retroarch perfectly, however, I do not really know what else to test the gyro with other than a Steam game in which I'm trying to emulate mouse movement with the gyro.

I'm trying to reproduce this on 6.1.11 and while there are definitely some issues (mostly hid-nintendo just kind of gives up after Steam exists, producing no further reports afaict), I'm not seeing this "spastic" behavior described. Are the original symptoms still accurate?

I have been using the Pro Controller via USB for a while now, both inside and outside Steam, and I noticed no conflict problems.
I think that this should be closed, other minor problems deserve their own issues now.
(Not using joycond, kernel 6.2.12-xanmod1)

I have been using the Pro Controller via USB for a while now, both inside and outside Steam, and I noticed no conflict problems. I think that this should be closed, other minor problems deserve their own issues now. (Not using joycond)

How did you get it working? For me it's super inconsistent across different devices and sometimes even across different connection methods (USB/BT).

I definitely don't think this issue should be closed as some people are still experiencing this problem.

actually I'm also using the pro controller (on debian 12, kernel 6.1) without joycond and I'm not getting any conflict issues since a some months. I don't know if anything as been done but it's very stable for me too.

@SuperSamus @sigzegv @Octelly What kernel are you on?
Don't forget hid-nintendo is only on Linux 5.16 and later.

@SuperSamus @sigzegv @Octelly

It's important to remember that hid-nintendo also applies to 3rd-party controllers, many of which are still not working correctly in the 6.2 series. As such, this is an ongoing issue with the driver functionality, despite the good news that 1st-party controllers work well.

hid-nintendo
driver functionality

@jason-oliveira Are talking about hid-nintendo or Steam? If it's the former, then you should go to https://github.com/DanielOgorchock/linux/issues.

@SuperSamus I mentioned hid-nintendo because I believe it's addition to Linux is related to the recent problems of Steam detecting the controller.

@nfp0
I'm on Arch, so I'm on 6.something.

@jason-oliveira
don't worry, I only have first party controllers, I generally avoid 3rd party ones

@Octelly Then you definitely have hid-nintendo on your kernel.

@SuperSamus
the problems stem from the combination of the 2...
idk, non-Steam games work great with my Pro Controller, Steam games are a lost cause though... and I don't really enjoy using my old beat up X360 controller for those

@nfp0 correct

@Octelly Try blacklisting hid-nintendo and see if you get the same behavior on Steam.

@nfp0 I need hid-nintendo for joycond, which I use for Dolphin... it handles gyro stuff and all that really well... I don't know anything about Steam input being able to pass raw gyro data onto applications...

@Octelly You don't need to do it permanently. My suggestion was to check if that is the source of the problem on Steam or not.

@nfp0 I might look into that later, can't reboot rn