Keypress recording not working (SteamOS)

[LucyLikesYourFace]

I have installed LinVAM on steam deck and the software appears to work and recognise commands, however I cannot record keypresses for commands.

Running as user, it errors about being in the input group (ive already run the script to configure this)

Running as root, there is no error, but nothing is entered.
I am using the onscreen keyboard (incase that changes things), dont have a physical one right now.

Additionally, is there a way to manually write a profile?

[stele95]

I'm assuming you ran steam-deck-configure-uinput-access.sh. Did you restart SteamOS after running the script (a restart is needed after running the script)?

You can manually write a profile, but it probably won't execute commands since it's not detecting any input from the keyboard as it uses the same way to detect and send events for keyboard and mouse inputs. Also, if you are testing inside a desktop mode, please run LinVAM from the terminal like this linvam --use-keyboard --use-mouse. Right now, by default, it uses ydotool to execute commands, but that is borked on so many systems, including the Steam Deck, since it's either not available or doesn't have the needed version for working correctly. I plan on making changes and removing it as a dependency in the future.

If you have a Linux PC, you can set up your profile there, extract it and them import it on Steam Deck (this is way easier than writing a profile yourself).

If you still want to write a profile manually, a template file is attached bellow. You will have to place your profiles.json file in this location ~/.local/share/LinVAM/.
Place your commands inside the commands list. There are already two example commands in the template file.
For each command, name represents a sentence that triggers that command. If you want multiple sentences to trigger the same command, separate them with a coma (,), e.x. execute first command,execute this command.
What you want to set up properly is key_events since that is executed when the command is recognized. As you can see in the template, each event is represented as a pair of event key and a 1 or a 0 (eventKey:status).
eventKey is a number representation of that key/event, you can find those here. Look for KEY_{NAME_OF_KEY} to determine which number to use for a needed key.
status represents if the key is pressed or released. Each key press has two events, pressed and released. 1 represents a press, 0 is a release. So, if you want to execute a press and release of a button, you would write something like this: 108:1->108:0. If you want to hold your button until the sequence of buttons is executed, just write 108:1 at the start of the sequence and 108:0 at the end, when the button is supposed to be released.
Another important thing is that each event is separated with ->.
You should get a good idea of how to set things up from the template file.
profile-template.json

Let me know if you managed to get it working and good luck!

[LucyLikesYourFace]

Okay, I've now tried using linvam --use-keyboard --use-mouse, no noticable changes im afraid. Not yet tried manually writing a profile but thanks for the info, may give it a try when i have the time

[stele95]

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a Steam Deck right now so I can't test if stuff works. I'll try with a SteamOS VM, but I'm not sure if that's going to be a realistic experience. I'll comment here when I have more info

[stele95]

I finally got access to a Steam Deck. Can you try the updated steam-deck-configure-uinput-access.sh script file and see if that helps?

Steam Deck in general seems to be a pain to set up, if it even works as expected after setting up, so I'm considering about dropping support for it entirely until I find a better implementation of how things work under the hood

Edit: typos and link fix