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hid-nx Linux kernel HID driver for Nintendo Switch controllers

This repository contains the source code for a Linux kernel module called hid-nx. This module is an HID driver for the Nintendo Switch controllers.

The hid-nx driver module is meant to be used in place of the in-kernel hid-nintendo driver. hid-nx provides equivalent functionality and extends support to the Nintendo Switch Online controllers.

For more information about the differences between this and the hid-nintendo driver included in the Linux kernel, see the "History" section further down.

Source

The source code for this driver can be found on GitHub.

Status

This driver should be considered experimental.

It ought to be stable enough for day-to-day use. However, its supported features, input mappings, device names, and so on may still be subject to change. Please read this document carefully if you experience any issues.

It is my eventual goal to propose some of these changes to the in-kernel driver, but no proposal is currently in progress.

Supported controllers

This driver continues to support devices implemented by the original hid-nintendo driver:

  • Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons (separately, together, or in a charging grip)
  • Nintendo Switch Pro Controller

This driver also supports these Nintendo Switch Online controllers:

This does not include controllers for the "Classic" consoles released by Nintendo.

Note: Compared to hid-nintendo, devices using the hid-nx driver module will have the following different behaviors:

  • Input mappings: During refactoring to more easily accommodate adding new device inputs, I rearranged the ordering and mapping of some inputs for existing controllers for consistency.
  • Device names: Rather than hard-code names per device, as in the mainline driver, I allow each device to report its own name on connection. This means the device's name differs slightly in some cases, as seen in programs like GNOME's Bluetooth settings, or RetroArch.
    • Unfortunately, RetroArch configures controllers by device name, and this means some controllers will no longer be automatically configured by RetroArch when using this driver. I hope in the future to supply useful autoconfiguration files for use, but in the meantime, you will need to configure those controllers' inputs manually.
    • This should not impact Joy-Cons, use of joycond, etc.

Supported Linux kernel versions

This driver should work with Linux kernel versions 5.16 or greater (the same kernel version in which the hid-nintendo driver appeared).

It may work on earlier versions, but they are not supported.

Installation

If you are installing on Arch Linux, this driver can be built and installed as a package. This is recommended. Otherwise, see the DKMS installation instructions.

Once installed, this driver replaces the native hid-nintendo driver. No other configuration should be necessary.

DKMS will automatically rebuild the driver for every kernel you install in the future.

As a package on Arch Linux

On Arch Linux, instead of installing from source directly, it is possible to build and install the module as a package. This is helpful because the Pacman packaging system will be aware of it. (Note, though, that even if you install as a package, the DKMS system is still used to manage the module.)

Run the following command without using root permissions. Once the package is built, you will be asked to confirm and authenticate for the package installation.

makepkg --clean --cleanbuild --syncdeps --force --install

From source using DKMS

To install this driver from source on Linux, use DKMS. The process is described below.

Before installation, you should install DKMS support. Depending on which Linux distribution you use, you can run one of the following commands as root or using sudo:

  • On Debian, Ubuntu, or Mint: apt-get install dkms
  • On Fedora: dnf install dkms
  • On Arch Linux: pacman -S dkms

Next, clone the source code.

git clone https://github.com/emilyst/hid-nx-dkms
cd hid-nx-dkms

Then run the following commands as root or using sudo.

dkms add .
dkms build hid-nx/1.14
dkms install hid-nx/1.14

Uninstallation

To remove fully, run the following commands as root or using sudo.

modprobe -r hid_nx
dkms uninstall hid-nx/1.14
dkms remove hid-nx/1.14
rm -rf /usr/src/hid-nx-*

Combining Joy-Con devices

Neither the hid-nintendo driver nor the hid-nx driver will present two connected Joy-Con controllers as a single device on their own. A userspace daemon called joycond provides this functionality. Install it and follow its instructions.

Arch Linux users can install joycond-git from the Arch Linux User Repository.

At this time, I recommend adding workaround udev rules to prevent joycond from interacting with the NSO controllers. The file 99-joycond-ignore.rules implements these rules. Run as root:

cp 99-joycond-ignore.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
udevadm control --reload

Planned

  • Refactors to break apart longer functions
  • Possible ideas from linux-rt:
    • Replace kernel spinlocks with mutexes that support priority inheritance
    • Move all interrupt and software interrupts to kernel threads
  • Possibly add more unlikely macros to error conditions
  • Amend commits to add Signed-Off-By for my own work

History

This driver was originally taken from the source code from drivers/hid/hid-nintendo.c at Linux kernel commit 3e732ebf7316ac83e8562db7e64cc68aec390a18. That driver source was first written by Daniel Ogorchock. His Linux kernel fork can be found on GitHub.

I then manually incorporated changes from Nadia Holmquist Pedersen to support SNES and NES controllers from Nintendo Switch Online.

After that, I extended this support to the Sega Genesis gamepad and proposed it as a change to Daniel's tree.

Once I saw there were more changes I wanted to make, I decided to share them as a separate out-of-tree kernel driver instead.

Along with Sega Genesis gamepad support, I've also added support for the Nintendo 64 controller for Nintendo Switch Online.

I've since renamed the driver to hid-nx to avoid confusion with the in-kernel module. I am in the process of refactoring and reformatting the source code to make it easier to understand and maintain.

License

HID driver for Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers

Copyright (c) 2019-2021 Daniel J. Ogorchock <[email protected]>
Portions Copyright (c) 2020 Nadia Holmquist Pedersen <[email protected]>
Copyright (c) 2022 Emily Strickland <[email protected]>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301, USA.