On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 at 19:27:41 +0100, Simon McVittie wrote:
> I don't think this is appropriate in this case. steam-devices sets up udev
> rules so that ordinary users can create emulated input devices and get
> "raw HID" access to game controllers, each of which is needed by some
> Steam features - but that does reduce the extent to which users of a
> multi-user system are protected from each other, so I think it would be
> inappropriate to suggest it for installation just because (for example)
> a Playstation 4 controller happens to have been detected.
One thing that *could* potentially be appropriate would be having
<provides> for a shorter, more-curated list of devices that don't
(usually) work unless Steam is installed - notably Valve's Steam
Controller gamepad, and possibly some of their VR hardware.
The Steam Controller usually only works as a game controller while Steam
is running and its Steam Input feature is active, so that one would be
appropriate to attach to Steam's metainfo rather than steam-devices.
(Third-party open-source user-space drivers also exist, but are not
in Debian, and I'm not sure whether they got beyond a prototype stage.)
However, because the Steam Controller is no longer manufactured, I'm not
sure how practically useful it would be to put effort into announcing
support for it.
I'm unsure about the status of the VR devices: maybe they're similar,
but I'd want that information to come from someone who has access to them
and uses them.
This more-curated list certainly shouldn't include ordinary Xbox- and
Playstation-compatible gamepads, because in general those work
fine without Steam (games can't normally get raw HID access without
steam-devices, but even in the absence of that access, they're available
as evdev gamepads with a few standardized or de-facto-standard mappings).
Another thing that could potentially be appropriate would be to add
<supports> for the supported game controllers or some reasonable subset of
them, but I'm not sure what that information would be practically useful
for, and I think we shouldn't add it just for the sake of adding it.
smcv
