Inspired by and slightly modified from:
- https://gist.github.com/ToadKing/26c28809b8174ad0e06bfba309cf3ff3
- https://github.com/MiddleMan5/steelseries-linux
This has less prerequisites and works even on immutable distros like Bazzite.
Note that is is all unofficial and not supported by SteelSeries. Not everything will work and you should only use the engine to control your devices. Things like Moments etc will NOT work.
- Lutris - Lutris is needed to actually install the Steelseries app after the setup here is done. See below.
- Python 3 - you most probably already have this.
Clone this repo, then simply run ./install.sh.
To configure the firmware on SteelSeries devices, you will need to send it HID reports through the hidraw kernel driver. However by default the device files the driver creates are only readable and writable by the root user for security purposes. Rather than just give read and write permission to everything, we are going to make a udev rule to only allow read and write access to the devices we need.
Start by creating this udev rule file in /etc/udev/rules.d/98-steelseries.rules:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1038" RUN+="/etc/udev/rules.d/steelseries-perms.py '%E{DEVNAME}'"
This sets up a rule for any hidraw device that is added with the SteelSeries USB Vendor ID. Rather than set the permissions here, we instead forward it the device file path to a python script.
The python script at /etc/udev/rules.d/steelseries-perms.py should be this:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import ctypes
import fcntl
import os
import struct
import sys
# from linux headers hidraw.h, hid.h, and ioctl.h
_IOC_NRBITS = 8
_IOC_TYPEBITS = 8
_IOC_SIZEBITS = 14
_IOC_NRSHIFT = 0
_IOC_TYPESHIFT = _IOC_NRSHIFT + _IOC_NRBITS
_IOC_SIZESHIFT = _IOC_TYPESHIFT + _IOC_TYPEBITS
_IOC_DIRSHIFT = _IOC_SIZESHIFT + _IOC_SIZEBITS
_IOC_READ = 2
def _IOC(dir, type, nr, size):
return (dir << _IOC_DIRSHIFT) | \
(ord(type) << _IOC_TYPESHIFT) | \
(nr << _IOC_NRSHIFT) | \
(size << _IOC_SIZESHIFT)
def _IOR(type, nr, size):
return _IOC(_IOC_READ, type, nr, size)
HID_MAX_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE = 4096
class hidraw_report_descriptor(ctypes.Structure):
_fields_ = [
('size', ctypes.c_uint),
('value', ctypes.c_uint8 * HID_MAX_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE),
]
HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE = _IOR('H', 0x01, ctypes.sizeof(ctypes.c_int))
HIDIOCGRDESC = _IOR('H', 0x02, ctypes.sizeof(hidraw_report_descriptor))
hidraw = sys.argv[1]
with open(hidraw, 'wb') as fd:
size = ctypes.c_uint()
fcntl.ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE, size, True)
descriptor = hidraw_report_descriptor()
descriptor.size = size
fcntl.ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGRDESC, descriptor, True)
descriptor = bytes(descriptor.value)[0:int.from_bytes(size, byteorder=sys.byteorder)]
# walk through the descriptor until we find the usage page
usagePage = 0
i = 0
while i < len(descriptor):
b0 = descriptor[i]
bTag = (b0 >> 4) & 0x0F
bType = (b0 >> 2) & 0x03
bSize = b0 & 0x03
if bSize != 0:
bSize = 2 ** (bSize - 1)
if b0 == 0b11111110:
# long types shouldn't be the usage page, skip them
i += 3 + descriptor[i+1]
continue
if bType == 1 and bTag == 0:
# usage page, grab it
format = ''
if bSize == 1:
format = 'B'
elif bSize == 2:
format = 'H'
elif bSize == 4:
format = 'I'
else:
raise Exception('usage page is length {}???'.format(bSize))
usagePage = struct.unpack_from(format, descriptor, i + 1)[0]
break
i += 1 + bSize
# set read/write permissions for vendor and consumer usage pages
# some devices don't use the vendor page, allow the interfaces they do use
if usagePage == 0x000C or usagePage >= 0xFF00:
os.chmod(hidraw, 0o666)
This python script does the following actions:
- Reads the HID Descriptor of the device.
- Does a simple parsing of the HID Descriptor to get the usage page of the descriptor.
- We check to see if the device has a vendor-defined usage page or a consumer usage page. These two usage pages are what most SteelSeries USB devices use for configuring the device.
- If the usage page matches one of those, set read and write permissions for the file.
Once you create this file, make sure the execute bit on the file is set so the udev rule can execute it properly. Once that's done you can either reset your udev rules and replug your SteelSeries devices or simply reboot your computer. Once you do you should see that some hidraw device files have read and write permissions for everybody:
$ ls -l /dev/hidraw*
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 0 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw0
crw------- 1 root root 237, 1 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw1
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 10 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw10
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 11 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw11
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 12 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw12
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 13 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw13
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 2 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw2
crw------- 1 root root 237, 3 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw3
crw------- 1 root root 237, 4 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw4
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 5 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw5
crw------- 1 root root 237, 6 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw6
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 7 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw7
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 237, 8 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw8
crw------- 1 root root 237, 9 Jul 13 17:58 /dev/hidraw9
(Notice that some filea have "crw-rw-rw-" permissions. That means they have read and write support for everyone.)
- After you run the installation script (and reboot), you can install Steelseries Engine in Lutris.
- Open Lutris -> click on + icon
- Choose
Search the Lutris website for installers - Search for
Steelseries GG(important make sure you don't chooseSteelseries Enginethis installation is outdated and won't work). Use this https://lutris.net/games/steelseries-gg/ - Click install and follow the instructions
- Changing settings for most of your Steelseries devices (eg. mouse DPI)
- Prism to control light effects on your Steelseries devices
- Device hotplugging does not work. If you unplug a device you will need to restart Engine for it to show up again.
- You should generally only use Engine as pointed above and assume everything else will not work.