Re: Logitech G25 wheel : partial grid and no clutch

[Annick et Jean-Philippe]

Hi, all.

For the happy owners of a Logitech G25 wheel that did not manage yet
to enjoy the full features of the beast under Linux, this is a small
summary of what I found on the net and my own humble experience about it
on a 2.6.22.9 Kernel (Mandriva 2008.0 x86_64) :

Note: This is only my own understanding and summarizing of what people cleverer
  than me discovered by themselves. My work only consisted to put
  all the stuff together in an as clear, simple and explict as possible
  sum-up. See at the bottom for references and real authors.

1) when plugged in, the G25 identies itself as a Logitech Formula Force EX
   USB device (046d:c294) ; you only get 4 axes and 12 buttons, that is
   neither clutch pedal nor any of the 3trd to 6th gear on the grid shifter
2) to get the lacking native features of the beast, it must be sent a command
   to switch to its native mode, that makes it disconnect and reconnect
   as itself this time (USB device ids 046d:c299)
   Note: Another similar command can also switch it to the Logitech Driving
 Force Pro mode.
3) to send the command, you need a userland tool that basically writes
   the associated bytes on the USB device, and the one I am using is
   usbtool 
   (the package includes pre-built binaries for python 2.5,
and sources if you need to build it yourself) ;

   to swhitch the G25 to its native mode, after plugging it in, I simply use :
 ./usbtool -v g25-set-extended-mode

   Note: you can also send other pre-configured commands with the usbtool
 (run ./usbtool --list-commands to see which)
 like g25-set-range-wheel-900 (teasing ;-)
   BUT: I never succeeded to send 2 successive commands to the device :
the first one is generally OK (sometimes, though, you may need to repeat
it), but the second (and following ones) seems to be completely ignored.

4) but this makes disappear the /dev/jsX and /dev/input/eventY devices !
   to get them back and be able to play with the G25, I use :
 sudo rmmod joydev
 sudo rmmod usbhid
 sudo modprobe usbhid
   (man sudo and sudoers to be able to run these root commands)

5) Then, if you find that the "dead zone" at the center of the wheel
   is too large (the centered angle where nothing happens when you steer into),
   it is only beacause you need to calibrate your device.
   I use jscal (ff-utils @ http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/libff)
   to do that :
   a) plug-in the device
   b) send the native mode-switch command if you like (see above 3)
   c) jscal -c /dev/jsX (X being 0, 1, ... look which in /dev after plugging-in)
   d) jstest /dev/jsX (to test if everything fits your desire)
   e) jscal -p /dev/jsX (to get the jscal command to put in your .bashrc
  or any script you would run before your favorite games ...)

Note: All this stuff should also work for a Driving Force Pro, and some says
  that it's also true for the Momo Racing wheels ... but don't tested.

Now, as far as force feedback is concerned, I have no such good news
for the moment : fftest and ffcstress don't work for me for the moment.

References:

Thanks to avl, eckzow, anrp, thelusiv, tof8pool, synapse247 and cuckoo,
 on http://vdrift.net forum :
  http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=412&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60
  http://vdrift.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=3751&highlight=linuxinput#3751
  ftp://srv.l14.ru/pub/usbtool-0.1.tar.gz

Thanks to Jiri Kosina, Chris Guirl,
 from the Linux input dev team
  http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-input@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz
  http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(search "g25" on each list)

Hoping this helps ...

Jean-Philippe.

Re: Logitech G25 wheel : partial grid and no clutch

[Jiri Kosina]

On Sat, 1 Mar 2008, Annick et Jean-Philippe wrote:

> Happy owner of a G25, I would be even happier if :
> - I could get the 3rd to 6th and Reverse gear working,
> - I could get the clutch pedal to be recognized ...
> All the tools I've used to test the device (jstest, freeglut tools,
> SDL tools, plib tools) say nearly the same :
> - 1 hat and 2 axes, or 3 axes (I miss one),
> - only 12 buttons (I miss at least 5, may be 7)
> So it's a driver issue ...

Please compile your kernel with CONFIG_HID_DEBUG and modprobe the 'hid' 
module with 'debug=1' parameter. Then perform all the operations that 
don't seem to work (i.e. press the non-working buttons, etc), and send me 
the annotated dmesg output (i.e. "this appeared when I pressed that 
button", etc).

Thanks,

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs

Logitech G25 wheel : partial grid and no clutch

[Annick et Jean-Philippe]

Hello guys,

Happy owner of a G25, I would be even happier if :
- I could get the 3rd to 6th and Reverse gear working,
- I could get the clutch pedal to be recognized ...

All the tools I've used to test the device (jstest, freeglut tools,
SDL tools, plib tools) say nearly the same :
- 1 hat and 2 axes, or 3 axes (I miss one),
- only 12 buttons (I miss at least 5, may be 7)

So it's a driver issue ...

I've seen some discussions around that device one year ago,
but as far as I can see, the patches that were proposed
are already in my kernel sources (Mandriva 2008.0).
And they were more about force feedback (that does not work, by the way ...).

The usbhid driver recognises the device right in hid-lgff.c,
as seen in /var/log/messages :
Mar  1 16:51:43 localhost kernel: Force feedback for Logitech force feedback 
devices by Johann Deneux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Mar  1 16:51:43 localhost kernel: input: USB HID v1.00 Joystick [G25 Racing 
Wheel] on usb-:00:02.0-9


Here are some of the relevant modules loaded in my kernel :

usbhid 45376  0
ff_memless  9608  1 usbhid
usbcore   135472  6 usbmouse,usbhid,usb_storage,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
ff_memless  9608  1 usbhid
joydev 14080  0

Any idea ?

Thanks in advance.

Pouillot.