Better Support For Thrustmaster Steering Wheels Is Driving To The Linux Kernel

It's looking like the Linux 5.13 kernel will better support some Thrustmaster wheels due to new driver code providing for proper USB device initialization.

Linux has already supported some Thrustmaster racing wheels while special handling is now being added for others like the Thrustmaster FFB Wheel T150RS, T300RS, T300 Ferrari Alcantara Edition, T500RS).

As part of the HID Git repository is now a for-5.13/thrustmaster branch where improvements to the Thrustmaster wheel support is queuing.

While the Thrustmaster wheels appear as a generic HID gamepad, not all of the functionality of the wheel is exposed without sending a specific set of USB control requests to the device, which is different for each racing wheel.

This GitHub repository outlines some of the specialized handling for Thrustmaster wheels. With this tentative code for the Linux kernel in for-5.13/thrustmaster, that specialized USB initialization is there for ensuring the device functionality is working. At least for the T300RS, special interrupt handling is also needed to prevent a "nasty crash" as well.

So for now it's not yet in HID-next but the for-5.13/thrustmaster topic branch but presumably will be all geared up for mainline in the next few weeks. This support isn't coming from Thrustmaster but rather the open-source community.