Polychromatc 0.8 Released As GUI Frontend For Managing Razer Devices On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Polychromatc 0.8 Released As GUI Frontend For Managing Razer Devices On Linux

A new release of Polychromatic is now available, the open-source GUI front-end for managing Razer devices on Linux by way of the community-managed OpenRazer drivers...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Polychromatic-0.8

[Vorpal]

Hm, there are now a few of these sorts of programs to manage various devices on Linux. I have Solaar for my Logitech mouse installed. I can see this might quickly be annoying if you use devices from multiple manufactures. It would be nice if there could be a unified framework to allow configuring devices properties across the board. With manufacture specific plugins as needed.

I believe there is work on OpenRGB for that in the RGB domain (which I personally don't care about, I just turn off all RGB). I would love to see such an effort in the field of HID peripherals though for things like DPI, button mappings, dongle pairing, etc. I'm not really keen on this approach of one program per manufacture. It just results in tons of running software. Approaching the levels this is on Windows (for example: Solaar uses 106 MB RAM! It is written in python apparently, so that is probably why. But still!).

[Jumbotron]

I understand the attraction of Python seeing as how it has become the modern day BASIC and is an interpreted language thus it's ability to rapidly prototype and even change code while running. But hell's bells, 106 MB for a config app for mice and keyboards ?!

I don't understand why this couldn't be written in Free Pascal or even Ada. The syntax is even more readable by real humans than Python, they have the speed of C or C++ but in the case of Ada is memory safe, the code base would be half that of Python (perhaps more) and although both are compiled languages how many freaking times would you have to iterate in a month? The recompilation time couldn't be that long before pushing out a bug fix or a feature update. Both Free Pascal and Ada are open source and free to use, even Ada for non commercial uses. And if I'm not mistaken they both use GTK as their widget/GUI builder (in their incarnation as a RAD with Lazarus for Free Pascal and GNAT for Ada).

[ripper81]

Hm, there are now a few of these sorts of programs to manage various devices on Linux. I have Solaar for my Logitech mouse installed. I can see this might quickly be annoying if you use devices from multiple manufactures. It would be nice if there could be a unified framework to allow configuring devices properties across the board. With manufacture specific plugins as needed.

I believe there is work on OpenRGB for that in the RGB domain (which I personally don't care about, I just turn off all RGB). I would love to see such an effort in the field of HID peripherals though for things like DPI, button mappings, dongle pairing, etc. I'm not really keen on this approach of one program per manufacture. It just results in tons of running software. Approaching the levels this is on Windows (for example: Solaar uses 106 MB RAM! It is written in python apparently, so that is probably why. But still!).

That would be great but is very unlikely to happen since every gaminggear brand is using it's own proprietary software to configure devices. However having support in any kind on linux for gaminghardware is still a huge problem especially if you come from windows where everything "just works".

I have used OpenRazer and Polychromatic for more than a year now and while it doesn't have all the features when compared to razers proprietary software on Windows it is great for what it is in my opinion. At least i can use my hardware with its most important features on linux without the need for creating an razer cloudaccount.

[marlock]

piper (a GUI for libratbag) may be the best framework for mouse configs supporting tweaking DPI and such

[Dukenukemx]

Time to upgrade.

[marlock]

However having support in any kind on linux for gaminghardware is still a huge problem especially if you come from windows where everything "just works".

I know it's an extreme uphill battle for hobby devs* to reach feature parity with windows software that's created by the hardware manufacturer and using crazy hacks and undisclosed proprietary metgods instead of sticking to broad open standards.

On the other hand, once someone manages to support a specific hardware in a specific opensource implementation like OpenRazer, it becomes far easier for other brand-agnostic projects to implement a general solution and handle brand/model specifics beneath the hood.

AFAIK OpenRazer already acts as a sort of reference implementation of Razer hardware quirks and features for other software like piper and OpenRGB to pick up on. It's a mutually beneficial colaboration instead of an actual competing solution like all the windows junk specialty software.

Let's also not forget that some brands (cof... cof... Logitech... cof!) use specialty software released only for some products as an artificial means to justify price tiers by software features, while the software could be unified and the features could most often than not be offered for their entire portfolio.

In those regards, Linux's opensource ecossystem stands a reasonable chance of actually surpassing the UX provided by windows helper apps in the long run.

OpenRGB is one such case, remarkably allowing users to drive devices from multiple brands through the same RGB control scheme, using coherent lighting routines that the brand itself might not offer, in sync with one another, which on windows is made into a many-app hell.

*= I say "hobby devs" here because specialty hardware is still driven by unpaid contribuitions from users instead of professionals being apid to do so... however there has been an uptick in professional linux dev efforts for this area of support and we must state quite clearly that Linux itself is by far not a hobby project anymore but instead a huge multilateral effort across big companies, with stellar governance to steer and keep it together