Linux 3.17 Kernel Released With Xbox One Controller Support

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Linux 3.17 Kernel Released With Xbox One Controller Support

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday October 5, 2014 @12:10PM from the check-it-out dept.

An anonymous reader writes The Linux 3.17 kernel was officially released today. Linux 3.17 presents a number of new features that include working open-source AMD Hawaii GPU support, an Xbox One controller driver, free-fall support for Toshiba laptops, numerous ARM updates, and other changes.

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Please explain by stair69 · 2014-10-05 12:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

Why does a driver for a game controller need to be incorporated into the kernel?
1. Re:Please explain by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-05 12:15 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It doesn't, you can load it as a module.
2. Re:Please explain by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-05 12:18 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Why does a driver for a game controller need to be incorporated into the kernel?
  Because it is easier for somebody else to maintain that way, the issue is that the Linux kernel does not have a stable binary interface so you cannot just provide a driver and expect it to continue working over time. When the kernel ABI is updated any changes to it that any driver depends on needs to be reflected in every one of those drivers.
  The alternative is that every driver is hosted in its own repo somewhere else and kernel maintainers then have to pull all those drivers from the various repos and make sure they all compile when a change is made to the ABI. But the current state leads to a very bloated kernel.
3. Re:Please explain by skids · 2014-10-05 12:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It doesn't, you can load it as a module.
  ...or run the alternative userspace driver, which linux supports doing as well.
  What really should be the question is why can't even Microsoft, which despite their software reputation generally is well reguarded for input accessories, not present a consistent interface across different generations of controllers. It's not like there isn't an enumeration standard they could follow.
  
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  Someone had to do it.
4. Re:Please explain by shione · 2014-10-05 12:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Because the xbox controller is the de facto standard controller in windows and on steam. And Linus knows that to get Linux onto everyones desktop one of the biggest shortcomings in Linux is mainstream commercial software and games. Steam OS (which cqan be installed over linux and not just standalone) sorta fixes that so it helps if the OS already has controller support.
  What I am waiting for is when Linux has out of the box support for those $1 usb bluetooth modules. They are a bitch to get working and really needed when youre setting up Linux as a HTPC and you dont want a huge IR module hanging out of your pc.
5. Re:Please explain by Chaos+Incarnate · 2014-10-05 13:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Microsoft didn't want to allow the Xbox One to accept Xbox 360 controllers, so they chose to scrap XInput support from the Xbox One controllers. That PC users can't use the controllers is just an unfortunate side-effect.
  
  --
  Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
6. Re:Please explain by Kjella · 2014-10-05 13:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The problem is that you can not control a kernel driver through an ABI, it all runs as root so bad driver code can corrupt or crash everything. If you can compile and trace/fix the driver yourself that's a manageable risk, if it's just a blob you're at the vendor's mercy. And since Linux doesn't have the market share (carrot) or a big certification program (stick) that wouldn't be a very good idea. The best case scenario is when you have a low-level ABI and can put the high-level driver code in a userspace driver, that way it can't harm the rest of the system at a slight performance penalty due to the context switches.
  That does depend on the hardware complying to some low level ABI though, otherwise the kernel wouldn't know how talk to the hardware. Fortunately USB is such a thing, plug in any USB device be it a keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, memory stick or an XBone controller and Linux has a low level kernel driver (one per USB generation I think, actually) to read/write data. That's what the alternate "xboxdrv" driver does, it reads USB events, translates them to input events and returns them to the kernel. It only works for USB though, you still need drivers to talk to PCIe devices, disk drives, network controller and whatnot else though.
  
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  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
7. Re:Please explain by HalAtWork · 2014-10-05 14:49 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Couldn't they just have a USB ID/Bluetooth ID whitelist?
  
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  Twinstiq, game news
8. Re:Please explain by jones_supa · 2014-10-05 20:18 · Score: 2
  
  They are not unnecessary if they provide extra safety.
  It is like using C++ vector instead of C array. There is some performance overhead, but it is a fair price to pay for the added safety.
9. Re:Please explain by NonUniqueNickname · 2014-10-06 03:09 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Why does a driver for a game controller need to be incorporated into the kernel?
  Welcome to /. Mr. Tanenbaum. Please feel free to create an account.
10. Re:Please explain by ncc74656 · 2014-10-06 04:02 · Score: 2
  
  shouldn't require waiting for a new Linux kernel to ship
  
  FTFY. Even the most ardent Stallmanites don't usually try to claim credit for the kernel.
  
  --
  20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Systemd should replace the kernel. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-05 12:27 · Score: 5, Funny

Why do we even have a Linux kernel these days?
It's late 2014, for crying out loud. It's almost 2015! We shouldn't have to deal with a Linux kernel. We should just have to install systemd and then we can have a working system.
The Linux kernel needs to go. It needs to be replaced with systemd.
1. Re:Systemd should replace the kernel. by DoofusOfDeath · 2014-10-05 12:41 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Why do we even have a Linux kernel these days?
  It's late 2014, for crying out loud. It's almost 2015! We shouldn't have to deal with a Linux kernel. We should just have to install systemd and then we can have a working system.
  The Linux kernel needs to go. It needs to be replaced with systemd.
  That's foolishness. Neither a kernel nor systemd is needed. My system boots straight into Emacs, and has systemd implemented in elisp.
2. Re:Systemd should replace the kernel. by Antique+Geekmeister · 2014-10-05 16:21 · Score: 2
  
  This has actually been tried.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
3. Re:Systemd should replace the kernel. by Pablopelos · 2014-10-05 18:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And it can do towers of hanoi, web browsing, email, ftp, and it even includes an editor I think.
Re:Linux games by shione · 2014-10-05 12:54 · Score: 5, Informative

No games to play???
http://store.steampowered.com/...
998 games and counting
including...
Xcom Enemy Unknown
Wasteland 2
Portal 2
Counter Strike
Left 4 Dead 2
DOTA 2
TF2
Garys Mod
Half Life 2
Civ 5
Borderlands 2
Witcher 2
System Shock 2
Killing Floor
How many games does a platform have to have so it doesnt have "no games to play" ?
Re:Zero G by ihtoit · 2014-10-05 13:23 · Score: 2

it's an OS-agnostic tech built in to the hard drive - the accelerometer is a basic switch that parks the head and deactivates the spindle motor if it detects excessive vibration or acceleration like during a freefall drop off a desk. You know if it's triggered when your OS complains about a delayed write failure (for some reason Windows 7 lacks the ability to send a "spinup" command to the controller), at which point you have to do a cold restart and everything's fine apart from the data that you just lost if you didn't already save it. It makes no guarantee for data integrity, it only guarantees the mitigation of risk of terminal headcrash during an impact event. Some manufacturers (Seagate, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and Western Digital) use variations on the theme, all platform-independent, though some OEMs such as Apple/Dell (are EuroPowerbooks still built at Dell's plant in Ireland?), Lenovo and Acer prefer to use their own accelerometers and control all aspects of physical protection through the controller interface via a custom BIOS.

--
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I'm shocked by DaveAtFraud · 2014-10-05 13:25 · Score: 3, Funny

Linus missed an opportunity to "adjust" the kernel version numbering scheme. This should have been released as Linux kernel 11.0.
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
Cheers,
Dave

--
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
1. Re:I'm shocked by marcello_dl · 2014-10-05 20:30 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Torvalds tried to joke and call it linux 3.18, but that broke the kernelversiond of systemd, which in turn messed the /dev tree so his printer started DDoSing his cellphone.
  All in all, a very windowsish experience.
  
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  ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Re:Linux games by skine · 2014-10-05 14:18 · Score: 4, Informative

World of... oh what was the name of that game... it's on the tip of my tongue....
Goo?
Re:Linux games by pecosdave · 2014-10-05 14:26 · Score: 2

I have World of Goo on nearly everything I own!
(Wii, Phone, Linux machine, and every my work Mac and work Windows machine)

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Re:An Apparent Pre-Mature Claim of 3.17 by Lunix+Nutcase · 2014-10-05 14:46 · Score: 2

A Slashdot first!
Re:Linux games by gman003 · 2014-10-05 15:33 · Score: 3, Informative

How many games does a platform have to have so it doesn't have "no games to play" ?
The PS3 was (and sometimes still is) widely ridiculed in gaming circles for having "no games", despite a launch lineup of 6-23 games (6JP/14US/23EU) and a current library of 796 retail games.
As no similar critiques were lobbed against the Xb360 (1,125) or Wii (1,222), we can conclude that the number of games necessary is somewhere in the range of 800-1100, most likely 1000.
However, your link only shows 702 games for me. Also, the above counts are of retail releases, which excludes a lot of the small indie stuff that makes up most of that list. And so we can conclude that Linux has "no games", and will continue to have "no games" for quite some time.
Re:Linux games by synapse7 · 2014-10-06 00:43 · Score: 2

I'm actually playing through Witcher2 at the moment on Mint, and it is f00king awesome so far.