[!WARNING] xboxdrv is mostly obsolete for everyday use. Prefer the in-kernel xpad driver and/or Steam Input. This tree remains useful for heavy remapping, userspace experimentation, and PROTOCOL notes.

Xbox/Xbox360 USB Gamepad Driver for Userspace

Xboxdrv is a userspace Xbox / Xbox 360 gamepad driver for Linux. It is an alternative to the xpad kernel driver and supports Xbox classic pads, Xbox 360 USB and wireless receivers, plus a number of third-party and related devices (see src/xpad_device.cpp). Optional backends include PlayStation 3 (USB), Wiimote (when built with CWiid), generic USB, and an experimental Steam Controller backend.

Chatpad support: wired USB controllers (interface 2) and experimental wireless receiver multiplexing (--chatpad). Headset audio works on wired Xbox 360 USB and on a wireless receiver slot (--headset / --headset-pipewire / --headset-pulse); wireless often has less noise than wired.

Use this driver when you need more configurability than xpad, or when xpad does not work for a particular device. For most games, the kernel driver is preferable.

Source

• GitHub: https://github.com/xboxdrv/xboxdrv
• Default branch: master
• Changelog: NEWS.md

Requirements

Build

• C++23 compiler (GCC ≥ 13 or recent Clang)
• CMake ≥ 3.14
• pkg-config
• libusb-1.0
• libudev
• libevdev
• X11 (libX11) — only for optional --help-x11keysym key names
• dbus-glib-1 / GLib (includes dbus-binding-tool for glue generation)
• Python 3 (D-Bus glue and bin2h generation)

Optional:

• libcwiid — Wiimote support (HAVE_CWIID when detected)

Vendored C++ helpers live under external/ and are built via CMake; they are not separate system packages. No GTK or Boost dependency is required.

Runtime

• uinput kernel module
• For daemon mode with a system bus name: D-Bus policy from data/org.seul.Xboxdrv.conf

Nix

A flake is provided (flake.nix):

nix build

Compilation

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Example package set on Debian/Ubuntu-style systems:

sudo apt-get install \
  g++ cmake pkg-config \
  libusb-1.0-0-dev libudev-dev libevdev-dev \
  libx11-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libglib2.0-dev \
  python3
# optional Wiimote:
# sudo apt-get install libcwiid-dev libbluetooth-dev

Load uinput:

sudo modprobe uinput

To load it on boot, add uinput to /etc/modules (or the equivalent for your distribution).

Installation

cmake --install build

Prefix and DESTDIR work as usual:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..
cmake --build .
DESTDIR=/tmp/stage cmake --install .

Running from the build tree without installing is fine for testing.

Daemon / D-Bus policy

If you run xboxdrv as a daemon that owns org.seul.Xboxdrv on the system bus, install the policy file:

sudo cp data/org.seul.Xboxdrv.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/

Without it, startup may fail with a D-Bus security policy error.

Running

Detailed options are documented in the man page:

man -l doc/xboxdrv.1

Example configs live in examples/. USB protocol notes are in PROTOCOL.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See COPYING.