With Linux 5.12 Set To Boot On The Nintendo 64, The N64 Controller Driver Is Now Queued

[GI_Jack]

Does any of this even matter? The system has barely enough RAM to boot the kernel. This is something that really irks me; since when does computing have to be "useful"? Last time I saw, Linux was written just for fun. People are free to do whatever they choose to do with their free time. If adding support for another system means writing a couple of hundred of self-contained lines of code, which don't represent a maintenance burden to the underlying architecture, why not?

It does when its upstream in the kernel, and when breakage blocks releases, or becomes a maintenance requirement with new code. If this was just a port in someone's github repo, it wouldn't matter. Now, it NEEDS to be maintained.

Regardless of what Linux was created for, its a serious business production os that people depend on. Often platforms get dropped because they are broken and there is no real userbase that depends on them, and its actual work to ensure they stay working on every new version.

As for anyone developing for the N64 platform: It would be far easier, cheaper, and less battles with Nintendo, the corporation just to use a rasbpi, with an N64 emulator, than actual N64 hardware.

In fact, there is already a turnkey solution oon the RetroPie, that among 50 other platforms, plays your old N64 games:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Nintendo-64/

[yoshi314]

i wish we could just build such things as external modules for linux kernel. but that would clash with the development style of it, unfortunately.

i am not really a fan of having all that code for likely obscure devices in one kernel tarball.

even though the n64 code is not that huge, there is a lot of hardware drivers in the kernel that majority of people do not use.

something like linux-libre, but with more obscure drivers removed instead.

[V10lator]

Not quite, This code only works on the N64 linux version with real controllers. Which makes sense as no PC has native ports for N64 controllers and no N64 has USB ports for controllers trough USB adapters.

However I believe there IS some support for USB adapter controllers, I dont know what state those are in though.

The USB adapters are just registering as generic gamepads / HID devices to the OS and translate the N64 protocol to HID, so there are no special drivers needed. There's just one exception: The Raphnet adapter has a feature called direct controller communication which allows emulators to access the controller like a real N64 (meaning things like memoy cards, rumble sticks and even gameboy transfair adapters just work). I wonder if this new driver could be adapted to this (to remove the HID layer for better latency and maybe other benefits).