During Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2011 I developed a Linux kernel driver for the Nintendo Wii Remote. With linux-3.1 release the driver was released with the upstream kernel sources and in a few weeks with linux-3.3 extension-support will be available. I tested the driver for a while now and despite several Bluetooth HIDP bugs I didn’t find any bugs in the hid-wiimote driver. The Bluetooth core is currently undergoing heavy changes and it might take a few weeks until the HIDP driver is stable but it works quite reliable for me.
Although the driver is available in most mainstream distributions the user-space part lagged behind for half a year. So I decided to write an X11 driver that works with the kernel Wii Remote driver. The first step was creating the xwiimote tools which provide a user-space library that allows very easy access to connected Wii Remotes and some debugging tools for connection tests. The library is still under development but the Core, Accelerometer and IR interfaces of Wii Remotes are supported. Based on this library I started the X11 input driver and released the version 0.2 yesterday. It currently only supports button input but the most challenging part was getting the X.Org module right and working around some epoll+O_SETSIG bugs.
Anyway, if you own a Nintendo Wii Remote there’s few steps you need to do to connect your Wii Remote:
- Install the xf86-input-xwiimote driver (this requires installing the xwiimote-tools). If you use ArchLinux they are available in the AUR. Make sure the hid-wiimote kernel driver is loaded.
- Install the BlueZ Bluetooth stack (this is the official Linux Bluetooth stack). See your distribution for more information.
- Start your Bluetooth-Applet of choice (like gnome-bluetooth, blueman or bluez-simple-agent)
- Search for nearby devices (device inquiry) and connect to your Wii Remote (it is called Nintendo RVL-CNT-1). If you use bluez-4.96 or newer than everything should work out-of-the box. However, if you are asked for PIN-input then you either use an older version or your Wii Remote is not detected. Simply connect to the device without Pairing/Bonding and everything should work fine. Pairing with Wii Remotes is only supported since bluez-4.96 as the Wii Remote does not follow the standards and needs special BlueZ-plugins.
- If your Wii Remote is connected dmesg should show some information about the Wii Remote. You can also use the xwiishow tool from the xwiimote-tools project (See man xwiishow).
- Your X-Server should automatically pick up the Wii Remote and load the xwiimote driver. The D-Pad should work as Left/Right/Up/Down keys and the other keys should also have useful mappings. Seeman xorg-xwiimote for configuration options.
That’s all you need to do to enable your Wii Remote as input device. I must admit that the most interesting parts (getting the IR cam and accelerometer as mouse-emulation, sound support, extension support) are still not supported by the X.Org driver. However, the kernel driver does support all this (except sound support) so it shouldn’t be very difficult to add support for these to xf86-input-xwiimote. At least the Linux user-space now has support for Nintendo Wii Remotes based on the hid-wiimote kernel driver and the most requested feature (button/key input) is now available and can be mapped to arbitrary buttons/keys.
If the software is not working on your distribution, please don’t hesitate to fill bug reports at http://github.com/dvdhrm/xwiimote or contact me directly per email.
Ponyhof 