While new games continue to be announced for Linux almost daily and Valve's SteamOS and Steam Machines efforts are pushing more hardware vendors towards looking at Linux support, leading gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer still goes without Linux support.
Razer's range of keyboards, mice, audio devices, and other gaming peripherals are incredibly popular with gamers. It's great hardware! Even without any official Linux support, I have reviewed many
Razer products on Linux in past years on Phoronix. Generally the hardware will work -- for gaming mice and keyboards they're generally working with the generic HID input driver on Linux so all basic support is in place. Sometimes extra key functionality will work and it's great when on mice they embed a sensitivity control through an extra button. Along side their Windows gaming focus they have also supported OS X for several years.
As Linux gaming advances, hopefully Razer Synapse will be ported to Linux. In the past we've heard of them dabbling with Linux or in the early days even talk of open-sourcing their software solution, but nothing has publicly materialized. The reason for today's post though is to comment on the Razer DeathAdder 2013 and to share news about a new, independent Razer Linux utility.
In some of the years past we have seen a few basic open-source utilities come about for Razer mice, like
Razer Tool to modify various settings of the device under Linux. These tools have been developed through USB reverse-engineering. All the tools I had known of from years ago are no longer maintained, but after recently picking up a new DeathAdder mouse, I'm pleased to see there's a new one: Razercfg.
Razercfg is an open-source Razer device configuration tool with Qt4 interface. The Razercfg tool currently supports the Boomslang CE, Copperhead, DeathAdder Classic, DeathAdder 3500 DPI, DeathAdder Black Edition, Imperator Classic/2012, Krait, Lachesis Classic, Lachesis 5600 DPI, Naga Classic/2012/2014, and Tapian mice. Features like hardware profiles, frequency switching, button remapping, DPI switching, and LED switching can be easily handled on Linux through this utility.
For more information on Razercfg check out
the project web-site and the
Razer Arch Linux Wiki documentation.
While I have tested the original
Razer DeathAdder, some weeks ago I bought the Razer DeathAdder 2013 6400 DPI mouse. This PC gaming mouse has a 6400 DPI 4G optical sensor, five programmable buttons, 1000Hz ultrapolling, and a nice ergonomic design. While I don't play any games myself, I like Razer's gaming mice for their sensitivity and enjoy using extremely high sensitive mice on the desktop.
The original DeathAdder had a button on the bottom of the mouse for switching the DPI and did not depend upon any driver support, but the 2013 version does not. Thus until Razercfg or another third-party utility supports this updated DeathAdder, there isn't any easy configuration support.
Fortunately I connected this gaming mouse to my main system that's a Retina MacBook Pro running OS X with Ubuntu Linux VMware-virtualized atop, so I just loaded Razer Synapse on the OS X side to bypass this problem for enjoying a very sensitive Ubuntu experience with this 6400 DPI mouse. Aside from the DPI adjustment shortcoming, the Razer DeathAdder 2013 has been working out great for my purposes with not depending upon profiles, button remapping, etc.
Hopefully soon enough we will see official Linux support out of Razer.
