Logitech Isn't Yet Fully Supporting Linux

[Lekensteyn]

There is no way to pair that crap in forced manner under Linux. Technically their receiver seems to use protocol resembling Unifying receivers but while it generally understands some commands of Unifying receiver, it does not supports many of them and seems to be earlier/partial flavour of similar protocol. So there is no way to pair mouse back to it receiver. [..] Yet it "old enough" to fail to fully understand unifying receiver protocol, so most of tools are half-working at very best. And never able to initiate pairing sequence to degree it would actually work. Needless to say, such Linux support from Logitech suxx. Maybe they should at least publish protocol details?

Is it the same "Mini receiver" as in https://github.com/pwr/Solaar/issues/109? The Logitech protocol on top of USB HID is HID++, if the wireless link supports the other devices, then pairing should be possible by sending the right commands. You might be able to use ltunify for that purpose.

Documentation is available, see https://lekensteyn.nl/files/logitech/ for some. The PR people obviously know nothing technically, you can't really blame them for their ignorance. Fact is that may companies (Logitech included) are still too Windows-oriented. Sometimes you got lucky and hit the right technical support person, at that moment you can learn a lot about it.

[Filiprino]

I hate all their utilities and stupid closed USB protocol commands. No manufacturer is different on this matter, at least when we talk about gaming gear.

On the other hand their hardware usually is high quality.

[xeekei]

I recently made the mistake of trying to replace my Roccat Kone[+] with a Logitech G500s. It did NOT work as good. I quickly changed back, and I'm now in the process of RMA:ing the Logitech. Ordered a Roccat Kone XTD instead, it was on sale so the price was the same.

[0xBADCODE]

Is it the same "Mini receiver" as in https://github.com/pwr/Solaar/issues/109? The Logitech protocol on top of USB HID is HID++, if the wireless link supports the other devices, then pairing should be possible by sending the right commands. You might be able to use ltunify for that purpose.

Documentation is available, see https://lekensteyn.nl/files/logitech/ for some. The PR people obviously know nothing technically, you can't really blame them for their ignorance. Fact is that may companies (Logitech included) are still too Windows-oriented. Sometimes you got lucky and hit the right technical support person, at that moment you can learn a lot about it.

1) No, its not the same "mini receiver". See below.for more details (at least device ID mismatch).
2) It seems to talk some protocol quite similar to HID++ but it likely to be "predecessor" or so. Software expecting HID++ can get some replies from receiver. For example, it would return something sensible about software version. But, say, bootloader version would not be returned correctly (probably command not handled correctly by ancient subflavor of protocol?). Some software can get battery status. But pairing does not works. So HID++ documentation is nice. But this appears to be some older device which isn't fully compliant with these specs.
3) I think I can blame support/PR for being retarded and failing to get idea Windows license costs some extra bucks and/or not the most welcomed way to solve problem (for these nuts I translated answer into terms they can understand: its like offering to buy someone's else HID device just to get Logitech device working).

Receiver appears as:

ID 046d:c51b Logitech, Inc. V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 1.10
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 8
idVendor 0x046d Logitech, Inc.
idProduct 0xc51b V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks
bcdDevice 46.00
iManufacturer 1 Logitech
iProduct 2 USB Receiver
iSerial 0
bNumConfigurations 1

[stiiixy]

Indeed.

Or why something like battery level monitoring is not a specified USB endpoint by now?

Why invest all that money in custom software development if this can just be delegated to the operating system?

Sometimes it seems that these primarily hardware vendors just like to waste money.

Cheers,
_

They drop support for older products which pisses me off. I had an older (okay very old) MX100. A very heavy and large radio mouse that was just a pain in the arse to get working in newer Windows. I undestand dropping support sometimes, but seriously, a mouse with 6 buttons?

Meh, Logitech costs to much for what you get in my opinion.

[Lekensteyn]

1) No, its not the same "mini receiver". See below.for more details (at least device ID mismatch).
2) It seems to talk some protocol quite similar to HID++ but it likely to be "predecessor" or so. Software expecting HID++ can get some replies from receiver. For example, it would return something sensible about software version. But, say, bootloader version would not be returned correctly (probably command not handled correctly by ancient subflavor of protocol?). Some software can get battery status. But pairing does not works. So HID++ documentation is nice. But this appears to be some older device which isn't fully compliant with these specs.
3) I think I can blame support/PR for being retarded and failing to get idea Windows license costs some extra bucks and/or not the most welcomed way to solve problem (for these nuts I translated answer into terms they can understand: its like offering to buy someone's else HID device just to get Logitech device working).

Receiver appears as:

ID 046d:c51b Logitech, Inc. V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 1.10
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 8
idVendor 0x046d Logitech, Inc.
idProduct 0xc51b V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks
bcdDevice 46.00
iManufacturer 1 Logitech
iProduct 2 USB Receiver
iSerial 0
bNumConfigurations 1

This device is only mentioned once at https://github.com/pwr/Solaar/issues/125 (nothing significant). Does a pairing tool exist for Windows? If so, you could use the technique described at https://lekensteyn.nl/logitech-unifying.html to find out the sequence that triggers pairing. A quick web search shows that there is something called "auto pairing" for this device. Mail me if you need a QEMU image.

As for the HID++ protocol, v1.0 provides means to access "registers". It is possible that things like "version registers" are not implemented for older devices, and that different ones are available. Anyway, this does not really matter as long as there is a way to trigger pairing.

[zanny]

Thanks Michael for pointing out Roccat Linux support. Didn't know there was a peripheral vendor that was on the ball, but they definitely have some exclusive business coming their way. Any other vendors that do legitimate Linux support for peripherals? Resources on the topic are sorely lacking - I'd be highly interested in a quarterly article on here about what hardware vendors provide proper support.

[Azpegath]

Thanks Michael for pointing out Roccat Linux support. Didn't know there was a peripheral vendor that was on the ball, but they definitely have some exclusive business coming their way. Any other vendors that do legitimate Linux support for peripherals? Resources on the topic are sorely lacking - I'd be highly interested in a quarterly article on here about what hardware vendors provide proper support.

I actually bought a pair of Roccat headphones, only thanks to their Linux support and of Michael mentioning them in his articles. Sadly, the plastic in them broke at the fixture of the headphone, but I got them fully refunded and will be looking at a new pair at the same store.

[rabcor]

Look at all the work I had to go through to make my G510 work. I don't even know C (I know C# and Python but that's really it for any general-purpose languages on my end) i scoured the net for 2 days for patches to make my board work with the old g15daemon project, then had to do some minor patching myself as well as fix broken parts of the patches I found. It was bad.

But I did get it working in the end, with a project that has been dropped, Gnome 15 never worked for my keyboard, I had severe input lag (severe enough to notice the delay between when I press a character and when it pops up on the screen) also, I don't like the name (Gnome 15) when I'm not even using gnome or any DE/WM derived from it.

But I really would love to get a mechanical keyboard with the same functionality (i.e. 18 programmable keys) like the corsair vengeance ones, damn they look nice.