Libratbag + Piper Allow For Great Logitech Gaming Mouse Support On Linux

While Roccat previously backed their devices on Linux that is the case no more and what is left for the time being are various community/third-party applications for supporting gaming mice/keyboard configuration under Linux from Logitech to Razer and various other lesser known brands of gaming peripherals (Razer will hopefully change this, at least). One of the most promising efforts right now for unifying mouse configuration on Linux is libratbag and its GTK3 Piper interface. Ratbag and Piper have evolved into a very competent open-source project for configuring Logitech mice on the Linux desktop.

One of the projects I've been most excited about in recent years from Google Summer of Code was the Libratbag and Piper UI work carried out by Jente Hidskes last summer. Jente was successful in advancing the "Piper" GTK3 user-interface to the Ratbag library and he has remained active in the project along with the likes of Peter Hutterer continuing to progress Linux input device support.

I actually started this review a year ago as following the GSoC project I picked up a Logitech G300s gaming mouse, which was supposed to work with Libratbag+Piper, but last August there were was a bug since resolved that blocked the support. I recently decided to re-try out Piper/Ratbag and was pleasantly surprised. This software configuration utility is now working with the Logitech G300s as well as a Logitech G203 Prodigy, which I recently picked up for another test system and reminded and motivated me to check on the project.

Libratbag is an effort led in part by Red Hat's Linux input expert, Peter Hutterer, for configurable mice on Linux. Libratbag dates back to 2015 and continues to be developed as a generic interface to configurable mice from button mappings, profiles, LED controls, and more. This library also has a DBus daemon, ratbagd, for exporting the devices. Piper meanwhile is the de facto GUI to libratbag and written in the GTK3 tool-kit with Python.