A Layman Learns Linux #4: Printers, Webcams, and Game Controllers in Fedora
This installment of A Layman Learns Linux (or, more accurately, A Layman Learns Fedora) will cover some of the various peripherals that I've got working. As is to be expected at this point, I had wildly different experiences with each!
1) GameSir Wireless Controller
Our first item is probably the quickest to discuss thanks to amount of time and effort Valve puts into hardware compatibility. A few months ago, I purchased a GameSir Super Nova controller primarily for PC use (though the controller also supports Switch and Android). It came highly recommended by Retro Game Corps, and the red/white version that I ended up getting was on sale at Best Buy for $30. I wasn't a huge fan of the color combination, but I couldn't argue with a $20 discount—besides, who else is going to see the controller anyway?
Gamesir's proprietary application for setting up LED patterns, controller profiles, and the back paddles is only available on Windows. I won't miss these features for the most part, but I may try to run the app through WINE if I really need to update the controller firmware. Otherwise, the Super Nova works perfectly fine on Linux in both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz modes. Steam was able to detect it as a generic X-Input controller, and I didn't even need to use Steam Input to remap anything.
2) Brother All-In-One Printer/Scanner
I'm going to be honest: I was pretty nervous about this one. Printers can be finicky even on Windows, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Luckily, Brother has Linux drivers on their website, so I grabbed those and started following the admittedly complex installation directions.
Here's the thing that I'm realizing in hindsight: I probably should've tried to detect the printer first to see if Fedora could automatically recognize it. I don't know if any of the following is actually necessary, but hey: the printer and scanner work, so I should probably just move on and be happy that I didn't screw anything up.
Step 7 is where I had to crack my knuckles and do some Googling. Because this was a network printer, I had to choose the right Uniform Resource Identifier for the printer. I still don't know what the hell that means. The handful of Reddit threads I found suggested selecting the one that looked like an IP address, which made sense to me. Was it the best choice? I'm still not sure, but after selecting that string of numbers and then answering "Yes" to a series of prompts, I was able to successfully run a test print, which included an adorable little Linux penguin and just about made my day.
There was a similar process for installing the scanner driver, albeit with fewer steps overall. Again, I'm not sure if this was entirely unnecessary, but I figured I'd give it a shot and simply uninstall the driver if it acted up.
The official Brother website claimed that this drive package would enable me to choose my settings directly from the scanner's physical buttons/interface, but this was not technically true. I could definitely scan things to my PC that way, but I wasn't able to select the format or DPI or any of the other settings that I was used to seeing when scanning documents to Windows. My test scan ended up in /home/brscan in .tif format by default. This didn't thrill me.
Luckily, there is lovely little app called Skanpage included with Fedora KDE. It has all the necessary settings to select the file format, resolution, dimensions (while there wasn't a letter setting, "Custom" worked fine), and save location. With that set up, we were in business for all of our basic home office needs!
3) Logitech Webcam
This one totally slipped me by until 90 minutes before a video call I had to take for work.
My current webcam is a several-year-old (but recently purchased) Logitech Brio 301. As with the GameSir controller, Logitech's software suites do not officially support Linux, so any future firmware updates will require booting into Windows or a hacky workaround.
In more positive news, the free-and-open-source gods smiled upon me and led me to an alternative program called Cameractrls, available via Flathub. This simple app seems to be compatible with most modern webcams (though your mileage my vary) and allowed me to adjust all the standard settings like resolution, exposure, white balance, etc. From there, it was just a matter of testing the webcam in Zoom, Discord, and OBS. All three detected the camera without any issues.
My video call went just fine, and I was able to use the standard Zoom options for SD/HD, a mirrored image, and light portrait blur. My coworkers were none the wiser about this wacky new hobby of mine. The only hitch was that the video previews occasionally ran at a very low framerate. I called my wife on Discord, and she reported that my video looked normal. I bet this is some kind of hardware acceleration issue that is separate from the webcam itself.
With those three items set up, I seemed to have covered my daily peripheral needs. Some items that I'm considering for the next few installments (unless I realize there's another piece of hardware that I need to set up):
- Using KDE Connect to transfer files between my phone and my PC
- Installing Fedora on my wife's computers and her experiences
- Setting up automatic backups to an external drive
- Running Windows programs through WINE
Until next time!