I just picked up a HORIPAD for the Switch. Hoping I could use it with Steam on my Linux box in addition to the switch, I plugged it into my system running the 5.0-rc1 kernel. It was a bit to my surprise, but it showed up as a recognized device:

$ dmesg
... snip ...
[    2.665567] input: HORI CO.,LTD. HORIPAD S as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/0003:0F0D:00C1.0001/input/input8
[    2.665671] hid-generic 0003:0F0D:00C1.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Gamepad [HORI CO.,LTD. HORIPAD S] on usb-0000:00:14.0-1/input0

We can find the same information in lsusb:

$ lsusb -v 

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0f0d:00c1 Hori Co., Ltd 
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass         0 
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x0f0d Hori Co., Ltd
  idProduct          0x00c1 
  bcdDevice            5.72
  iManufacturer           1 
  iProduct                2 
  iSerial                 0 
  bNumConfigurations      1

  ... snip ...

So we know it’s recognized, lets see if jstest can read input coming from the device:

$ jstest --normal /dev/input/js0

Driver version is 2.1.0.
Joystick (HORI CO.,LTD. HORIPAD S) has 6 axes (X, Y, Z, Rz, Hat0X, Hat0Y)
and 14 buttons (BtnA, BtnB, BtnC, BtnX, BtnY, BtnZ, BtnTL, BtnTR, BtnTL2, BtnTR2, BtnSelect, BtnStart, BtnMode, BtnThumbL).
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off 
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:on   2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off 
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:on   2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off 
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:on   3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:on   3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0:  9458  1: -2703  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off 
Axes:  0:-32767  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0: -1014  1: 32767  2:-18580  3: 32767  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0: -1690  1: 32767  2:-18580  3: 32767  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0: -1690  1: 32767  2:-18580  3: 32767  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0: -2027  1: 32767  2:-18580  3: 32767  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off
Axes:  0:     0  1:     0  2:     0  3:     0  4:     0  5:     0 Buttons:  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  7:off  8:off  9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off 13:off 

All the buttons, sticks, and dpad seem to work and jstest is able to read signal from all inputs! I opened up steam, thinking I was going to play Celeste. However steam reported that it didn’t recognize any controllers… Going into Settings -> Controllers -> General Controller Settings, I had the “Generic Gamepad Configuration Support” option checked, as this wasn’t one of the known Xbox/PS/Switch controllers. Steam wasn’t able to see the device for some reason.

After digging around online for a bit, I discovered the steam-devices package, which was recommended by folks debugging other controllers. I installed that package, and nothing changed. :(

Wondering what exactly this package does, I started to dig into what the package provided.

$ dpkg -L steam-devices

/.
/lib
/lib/udev
/lib/udev/rules.d
/lib/udev/rules.d/60-HTC-Vive-perms.rules
/lib/udev/rules.d/99-steam-controller-perms.rules
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/steam-devices
/usr/share/doc/steam-devices/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/steam-devices/copyright

That 99-steam-controller-perm.rules file stood out as interesting.

$ head /lib/udev/rules.d/99-steam-controller-perms.rules

# Valve USB devices
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"
# Steam Controller udev write access
KERNEL=="uinput", SUBSYSTEM=="misc", TAG+="uaccess"

# Valve HID devices over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"

# Valve HID devices over bluetooth hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", KERNELS=="*28DE:*", MODE="0666"

It looks like a bunch of udev rules for configuring the permission for hidraw and uinput devices. We saw in the dmesg output above that our controller is a hidraw device, maybe we need to setup permissions for the device to be read by non elevated users?

To test this out I appended the following to the 99-steam-controller-perm.rules file. I found the vendor id and product id for the HORIPAD using lsusb -v (as seen above).

# HORIPAD S over USB hidraw
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0f0d", ATTRS{idProduct}=="00c1", MODE="0666"

Not wanting to reboot I quickly dug up how to force reload udev rules:

$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules 
$ sudo udevadm trigger

A few seconds later, steam popped up a window informing me that it had recognized a new controller!

I started up Celeste and everything worked like a charm. Off to play the game!