Fix Steam Controller Issues in Linux

2016-12-25 09:05

Last time I was praising Steam Controller for running smoothly in Ubuntu. Well, I must have jinxed it. As you might have noticed, after a recent update, it stopped working all together. The reason is, Valve have changed the protocol for wireless communication between the controller and the computer. Luckily, the fix is easy. You just have to edit the udev rules. So, open them with a text editor:

$ sudo nano /lib/udev/rules.d/99-steam-controller-perms.rules

and change them to the following:

# This rule is needed for basic functionality of the controller in Steam and
# keyboard/mouse emulation
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"

# This rule is necessary for gamepad emulation; make sure you
# replace 'pgriffais' with a group that the user that runs Steam belongs to
KERNEL=="uinput", MODE="0660", GROUP="pgriffais", OPTIONS+="static_node=uinput"

# Valve HID devices over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"

# Valve HID devices over bluetooth hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", KERNELS=="*28DE:*", MODE="0666"

# DualShock 4 over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="054c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="05c4", MODE="0666"

# DualShock 4 wireless adapter over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="054c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0ba0", MODE="0666"

# DualShock 4 Slim over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="054c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="09cc", MODE="0666"

# DualShock 4 over bluetooth hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", KERNELS=="*054C:05C4*", MODE="0666"

# DualShock 4 Slim over bluetooth hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", KERNELS=="*054C:09CC*", MODE="0666"

Now, save them with Ctrl + x.

I wonder, how much of a problem would be to update the udev package along the Steam update. While the updated rules were mentioned in the change log, it did not say which file you were supposed to edit. And of course, not everybody reads changelogs. So this caused a headache to lot of users. Hopefully, Valve will handle updates better in the future.