I wound up with one of those newfangled playstation controllers, and I’m surprised at how good it is. It paired nicely on Endeavour KDE, and there’s a big touchpad in the center that works to control the mouse pointer out of the box. I’m quite happy with it!
I love the DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers’ support on Linux, but I’m not a huge fan of the controllers themselves despite exclusively using the DS4 as my PC controller. I’m perfectly okay with the layout since I grew up on the PlayStation, and in fact prefer it to the mainstream Xbox/Nintendo options due to being the only controller to have a touchpad, and both gyro and analog triggers, but the abysmal battery life on the controllers has been a frustration for my couch PC gaming setup, my fairly old DS4 controllers barely last for more than 30 minutes on battery now. The biggest thing holding me back from buying a new DualSense to replace those controllers is the fact that it, too, has terrible battery life.
I’m hopeful that Valve’s desire to make a Steam Controller 2 pans out, as I expect that such a device will also provide stellar Linux support (or perhaps already does if it ends up reusing as much of the Steam Deck’s input setup as it can), and would hopefully offer much better battery life than Sony’s attempts.
Still waiting on $ony or m$ to introduce back paddles as independent buttons, removable battery packs with AA support on ps controllers, and hall effect everything that moves. But Linux hardware support is indeed impressive and nothing like the old days.
Wait till you try a game with support for the adaptive triggers, like Rift Apart, where the trigger will only pull halfway for primary fire (and resist being pulled further), and putting in more force to pull it fully is secondary fire.
Most games don’t use it of course, but it IS supported and working.
I love the DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers’ support on Linux, but I’m not a huge fan of the controllers themselves despite exclusively using the DS4 as my PC controller. I’m perfectly okay with the layout since I grew up on the PlayStation, and in fact prefer it to the mainstream Xbox/Nintendo options due to being the only controller to have a touchpad, and both gyro and analog triggers, but the abysmal battery life on the controllers has been a frustration for my couch PC gaming setup, my fairly old DS4 controllers barely last for more than 30 minutes on battery now. The biggest thing holding me back from buying a new DualSense to replace those controllers is the fact that it, too, has terrible battery life.
I’m hopeful that Valve’s desire to make a Steam Controller 2 pans out, as I expect that such a device will also provide stellar Linux support (or perhaps already does if it ends up reusing as much of the Steam Deck’s input setup as it can), and would hopefully offer much better battery life than Sony’s attempts.
Still waiting on $ony or m$ to introduce back paddles as independent buttons, removable battery packs with AA support on ps controllers, and hall effect everything that moves. But Linux hardware support is indeed impressive and nothing like the old days.
Wait till you try a game with support for the adaptive triggers, like Rift Apart, where the trigger will only pull halfway for primary fire (and resist being pulled further), and putting in more force to pull it fully is secondary fire.
Most games don’t use it of course, but it IS supported and working.