6 ms·

MSI SteelSeries Keyboard LED Controller for Linux

44 points by stevelacy 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago
For anyone who wonder what it is it's for a the MSI gaming laptops with "SteelSeries Engine" supported keyboards. It allows you to change the lighting and possibly do macro keys under Linux.
- mordant 10y ago
  Why would anyone run Linux on a gaming laptop, given that this would pretty much preclude playing any actual games?
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    1) These are very high end machines I've seen people using gaming laptops as workstations before, they tend to be quite economical (compared to workstation / DTR laptops from the likes of Dell/Lenovo) especially if you are doing some GPU related work. But even if you aren't doing anything with the GPU gaming laptops are pretty much the only way of getting more than 16GB today even on a 15" laptop as they often come with 4 or even 6 soDIMM slots. 2) You can run some games on Linux too these days.
    - geff82 10y ago
      Take the Lenovo Y700-15isk for example. It can swallow up to 32GB of RAM, has quad-core CPUs and can have two hard drives (one M.2 and one normal SATA). The noise in normal office use is close to zero, and the keyboard, that is built for gamers, helps longevity for normal use, too. Did I mention the Nvidia GTX 960 with 4GB vRAM? This thing is what used to be the "workstation class" while still providing 6 hours battery life. Full Linux support. Costs 899 Euros in the base model without operating system (Germany). So: if you are a number cruncher and want to do some serious gaming, too, a gaming laptop with Linux makes a lot of sense.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    There are more than 2000 games on Steam for Linux right now. Including a growing number of AAA games. Still small compared to the WIndows offering, but far from being negligeable anymore.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      The amount of AAA titles that comes to linux is still negligible <1% of AAA titles end up on Linux within their first 3 years of release (Ubisoft, Activision and EA do not release titles on Linux). The only big publisher that releases games for Linux is 2K which has released several games on Linux including old AAA titles but they also don't do it directly the license it to another company and pretty much wash their hands of any support. Overall out of those 2000 games a lot are borderline games, and out of those that are a lot are borderline playable on Linux since Steam doesn't really enforces strict rules. So no the Linux gaming market is still pitiful it's not much better than it was 5 or even 10 years ago with Wine if anything it's worse since DX11/12 games pretty much do not run on Wine. On the indie side things are much better so if you are only a very casual gamer or really like some old school stuff you'll have things to play, if you want to play AAA titles Linux isn't where you find it.
      - therealidiot 10y ago
        I guess we should all just give up and go home then, I mean it's obvious that nobody should try. Ever. This is how you ensure that it only gets worse.
      - ekianjo 10y ago
        I don't agree with the points you raised. - <1% AAA titles vs Windows ? There are less than 100 AAA titles every year on Windows, and I'm pretty sure we get more than 1 % based on the recent releases of Shadow of Mordor and Tomb Raider 2013. Of course the percentage is still small but certainly not in that range. - there is more and more Day 1 AAA support than ever for Linux. XCOM2. Dying Light, just to name a few. Such ports are not always flawless but there were non-existent before. You can't say there is no difference at all. - 2000: a lot of them are indie games. Whether those are borderline games or not is left to your opinion, but I personally have several hundred games on Linux that are actual games and not "mobile-games ported to Linux" kind of games. - Not better than 5 years ago ? You must be kidding. 5 years ago apart from WINE there was basically close to no official Linux support. The earliest support before Valve jumped in were indie devs like 2D Boy. Since them the amount of official support has massively improved by ANY metric. - WINE has improved a lot actually. First, DX9 translation is becoming extremely close to native Windows performance, and it's not rare to see DX9 games performing better on WIndows than on Linux. Then, DX11 support is actually coming by the end of 2016 (based on a recent interview with the main supporters of WINE, Codeweavers). - Vulkan is now out there and since it will be a cross-platform API unlike DX12, you can imagine broader support for Linux in the future. So, I don't share at all the level of negativity of your comments. There's never been any better time to game on Linux than now.
  - simplexion 10y ago
    Where have you been living the past few years? I only game on Linux.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      What exactly do you play i wonder, sure there are some games, some 1st party games from Valve come out to Linux, some 2K titles will get a Linux release on steam 3 years down the line (and usually be somewhat broken), and there are some indie games. But please let's not portray Linux as a viable gaming OS.
      - lsh 10y ago
        wow, you really have it in for gaming on Linux. Steam has absolutely made Linux a 'viable' gaming OS if it wasn't already. SteamOS is doing great things too. http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=linux
        dogma1138 10y ago
        I have nothing against gaming on Linux, I have (well had it's the VR box now) a SteamOS machine since the first public OS beta release and quite a strong one (my old gaming rig 3770K & dual 780ti's, updated to 980ti for the HTC Vive). None of the games I play are available on Linux, none of the new AAA titles are available on Linux. With Valve not fully supporting SteamVR on Linux currently through the HTC Vive that's not even an option either. But the difference is that I don't have some bias and will not attempt to fool anyone by portraying that they can use Linux or SteamOS as a gaming setup, not unless they only play the few 1st party Valve games, bargain bin AAA titles and Indies because beyond that it's very slim pickens.
        jamespo 10y ago
        I doubt many people choose Linux primarily as a gaming OS. Gaming sounds of primary concern to you, for others they want the development environment and freedom of Linux and gaming is a very pleasant bonus.
  - jon-wood 10y ago
    In my case its because it was the most economical way to get a 13" laptop with 16GB of RAM and an i7. The fact I can add a second SSD with Windows on it and play games with the settings turned up is really just a pleasant side effect.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    Many games run fine on Linux (most of the interesting ones), and I also use my gaming laptop for work and school.
  - glenndebacker 10y ago
    If you are an indie gamer like myself than there is enough stuff to play on a non Windows machine. I've been an avid gamer for years but where 10 years ago I gamed only on Windows, that is definitely not the case today.
  - detaro 10y ago
    Why would use a gaming laptop only for gaming?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sspiff 10y ago
    It of course depends on the games you enjoy, but of the games I play, many work perfectly on Linux.
  - chrisra 10y ago
    I have an MSI with Linux and Windows on it. I prefer to do everything in Linux and mostly only use Windows for games. I'm a programmer, and working in Windows sounds kinda scary to me. I don't think your question deserves the down votes.
  - kusmi 10y ago
    I bought a Clevo gaming laptop for bioinformatics work and occasional gaming. It houses a 4 core (8 multithreaded) CPU for which I am able to lock in clock rate at around 3.5GHz without hitting the 100C ceiling when utilizing 100% of all the cores, with stock fans. It also has 32Gb of memory, three internal SSDs, a CUDA capable GPU, and the total cost was under 1600$ (~2 years ago). But that's peanuts compared to this: It boots CentOS with SElinux enabled and runs my steam games with a FPS comparable to what I had on MS windows.
voltagex_ 10y ago
This is using libusb from Node via https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi-keyboard https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi-keyboard / https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Neat, but I always went for function over flash. Which is why I use the excellent Unicomp keyboards. <shameless-plug type=semi-serious-parody> They're (relatively) cheap, virtually indestructable, and as good as a gaming keyboard, if not better, and much less flashy. I would say they're the best keyboard on the market right now. </shameless-plug>

44 points by stevelacy 10y ago

For anyone who wonder what it is it's for a the MSI gaming laptops with "SteelSeries Engine" supported keyboards. It allows you to change the lighting and possibly do macro keys under Linux.

mordant 10y ago
Why would anyone run Linux on a gaming laptop, given that this would pretty much preclude playing any actual games?
- dogma1138 10y ago
  1) These are very high end machines I've seen people using gaming laptops as workstations before, they tend to be quite economical (compared to workstation / DTR laptops from the likes of Dell/Lenovo) especially if you are doing some GPU related work. But even if you aren't doing anything with the GPU gaming laptops are pretty much the only way of getting more than 16GB today even on a 15" laptop as they often come with 4 or even 6 soDIMM slots. 2) You can run some games on Linux too these days.
  - geff82 10y ago
    Take the Lenovo Y700-15isk for example. It can swallow up to 32GB of RAM, has quad-core CPUs and can have two hard drives (one M.2 and one normal SATA). The noise in normal office use is close to zero, and the keyboard, that is built for gamers, helps longevity for normal use, too. Did I mention the Nvidia GTX 960 with 4GB vRAM? This thing is what used to be the "workstation class" while still providing 6 hours battery life. Full Linux support. Costs 899 Euros in the base model without operating system (Germany). So: if you are a number cruncher and want to do some serious gaming, too, a gaming laptop with Linux makes a lot of sense.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  There are more than 2000 games on Steam for Linux right now. Including a growing number of AAA games. Still small compared to the WIndows offering, but far from being negligeable anymore.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    The amount of AAA titles that comes to linux is still negligible <1% of AAA titles end up on Linux within their first 3 years of release (Ubisoft, Activision and EA do not release titles on Linux). The only big publisher that releases games for Linux is 2K which has released several games on Linux including old AAA titles but they also don't do it directly the license it to another company and pretty much wash their hands of any support. Overall out of those 2000 games a lot are borderline games, and out of those that are a lot are borderline playable on Linux since Steam doesn't really enforces strict rules. So no the Linux gaming market is still pitiful it's not much better than it was 5 or even 10 years ago with Wine if anything it's worse since DX11/12 games pretty much do not run on Wine. On the indie side things are much better so if you are only a very casual gamer or really like some old school stuff you'll have things to play, if you want to play AAA titles Linux isn't where you find it.
    - therealidiot 10y ago
      I guess we should all just give up and go home then, I mean it's obvious that nobody should try. Ever. This is how you ensure that it only gets worse.
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      I don't agree with the points you raised. - <1% AAA titles vs Windows ? There are less than 100 AAA titles every year on Windows, and I'm pretty sure we get more than 1 % based on the recent releases of Shadow of Mordor and Tomb Raider 2013. Of course the percentage is still small but certainly not in that range. - there is more and more Day 1 AAA support than ever for Linux. XCOM2. Dying Light, just to name a few. Such ports are not always flawless but there were non-existent before. You can't say there is no difference at all. - 2000: a lot of them are indie games. Whether those are borderline games or not is left to your opinion, but I personally have several hundred games on Linux that are actual games and not "mobile-games ported to Linux" kind of games. - Not better than 5 years ago ? You must be kidding. 5 years ago apart from WINE there was basically close to no official Linux support. The earliest support before Valve jumped in were indie devs like 2D Boy. Since them the amount of official support has massively improved by ANY metric. - WINE has improved a lot actually. First, DX9 translation is becoming extremely close to native Windows performance, and it's not rare to see DX9 games performing better on WIndows than on Linux. Then, DX11 support is actually coming by the end of 2016 (based on a recent interview with the main supporters of WINE, Codeweavers). - Vulkan is now out there and since it will be a cross-platform API unlike DX12, you can imagine broader support for Linux in the future. So, I don't share at all the level of negativity of your comments. There's never been any better time to game on Linux than now.
- simplexion 10y ago
  Where have you been living the past few years? I only game on Linux.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    What exactly do you play i wonder, sure there are some games, some 1st party games from Valve come out to Linux, some 2K titles will get a Linux release on steam 3 years down the line (and usually be somewhat broken), and there are some indie games. But please let's not portray Linux as a viable gaming OS.
    - lsh 10y ago
      wow, you really have it in for gaming on Linux. Steam has absolutely made Linux a 'viable' gaming OS if it wasn't already. SteamOS is doing great things too. http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=linux http://store.steampowered.com/search/?os=linux
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        I have nothing against gaming on Linux, I have (well had it's the VR box now) a SteamOS machine since the first public OS beta release and quite a strong one (my old gaming rig 3770K & dual 780ti's, updated to 980ti for the HTC Vive). None of the games I play are available on Linux, none of the new AAA titles are available on Linux. With Valve not fully supporting SteamVR on Linux currently through the HTC Vive that's not even an option either. But the difference is that I don't have some bias and will not attempt to fool anyone by portraying that they can use Linux or SteamOS as a gaming setup, not unless they only play the few 1st party Valve games, bargain bin AAA titles and Indies because beyond that it's very slim pickens.
        jamespo 10y ago
        I doubt many people choose Linux primarily as a gaming OS. Gaming sounds of primary concern to you, for others they want the development environment and freedom of Linux and gaming is a very pleasant bonus.
- jon-wood 10y ago
  In my case its because it was the most economical way to get a 13" laptop with 16GB of RAM and an i7. The fact I can add a second SSD with Windows on it and play games with the settings turned up is really just a pleasant side effect.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Many games run fine on Linux (most of the interesting ones), and I also use my gaming laptop for work and school.
- glenndebacker 10y ago
  If you are an indie gamer like myself than there is enough stuff to play on a non Windows machine. I've been an avid gamer for years but where 10 years ago I gamed only on Windows, that is definitely not the case today.
- detaro 10y ago
  Why would use a gaming laptop only for gaming?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sspiff 10y ago
  It of course depends on the games you enjoy, but of the games I play, many work perfectly on Linux.
- chrisra 10y ago
  I have an MSI with Linux and Windows on it. I prefer to do everything in Linux and mostly only use Windows for games. I'm a programmer, and working in Windows sounds kinda scary to me. I don't think your question deserves the down votes.
- kusmi 10y ago
  I bought a Clevo gaming laptop for bioinformatics work and occasional gaming. It houses a 4 core (8 multithreaded) CPU for which I am able to lock in clock rate at around 3.5GHz without hitting the 100C ceiling when utilizing 100% of all the cores, with stock fans. It also has 32Gb of memory, three internal SSDs, a CUDA capable GPU, and the total cost was under 1600$ (~2 years ago). But that's peanuts compared to this: It boots CentOS with SElinux enabled and runs my steam games with a FPS comparable to what I had on MS windows.

voltagex_ 10y ago

This is using libusb from Node via https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi-keyboard https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi-keyboard / https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Neat, but I always went for function over flash. Which is why I use the excellent Unicomp keyboards. <shameless-plug type=semi-serious-parody> They're (relatively) cheap, virtually indestructable, and as good as a gaming keyboard, if not better, and much less flashy. I would say they're the best keyboard on the market right now. </shameless-plug>