Logitech LX710 Cordless Desktop and evdev woes.

confusion · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 132

Hi guys.

My girlfriend bought me a logitech LX710 desktop as one of my xmas presents this year, which is awesome, but getting it to work with linux (gentoo) has turned into a bit of a struggle.

In a nutshell, I now have some of the multimedia keys working, and all of the mouse. What is unusual about this keyboard is that the keys that do work seem to be sent down the same event device as the mouse (event2). In order to get any of them working, i have to set my mouse driver from evdev to 'mouse', create a second keyboard using the evdev driver, and point that to /dev/input/event2. I found the gentoo wiki howto for advanced mouse configurations helpful here, as my current setup is similar to that of the LX501 - my only issue is that most of the multimedia keys are still missing.

If i close down everything and cat the event's in /dev/input, i receive garbage (which is good!) for every single mouse movement, keypress, buttonpress/release other than my zoon buttons, rotation buttons, shuffle button, picture viewer button, voip button, and every single auxiliary function button bar ONE. It seems really really unusual as these keys are not special. Some that do not work are mixed right in there with some that do.

Is this a problem on the kernel level? No events are picked up for these keys whatsoever.

Thanks guys,

John

Drewgrange · Guru Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 483 Location: Ohio, US

I have this same keyboard. From what I read the problem is with the usb hid stuff in the kernel. Extra keyboard keys don't seem to work through USB. The problem with this keyboard+mouse setup is that I can't get my computer to boot when I try to put them through a PS/2 port. We might have to wait until this gets fixed in the kernel (it apparently is being worked on). Look at keytouch for more info. The guy who is in charge of it seems to be the one working on fixing the kernel USB issues.

enlightend · n00b Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 29

I use the USB->PS/2 converters for my LX700/MX1000 combo because of these USB problems.

When mouse and keyboard are in the good old plugs, I can set every key on the board and mouse in gnome.
Only thing I didn't find yet is how to get the volume shufflepad to control the volume on PCM instead of the master channel, since the master channel only manages the audio levels on my front speakers, while PCM seems to do it globaly.

I hope your LX710 came with the same converter cables and plugs!

Drewgrange · Guru Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 483 Location: Ohio, US

Enlightened, No the LX-710 does not. I do have one of these plugs though from my old mouse. Did you buy your mouse and keyboard separate, meaning that you have two separate cables for them? I think the problem with the LX-710 is that both the keyboard and mouse go through one USB connector. When I try to plug the one USB connector into either of the PS/2 ports, the keyboard doesn't work.

enlightend · n00b Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 29

Nope, they came together as the MX3100 bundle which is an LX700+MX1000

They both connect to the same bluetooth receiver(which doubles as the mouse charging dock) which has a cable going to the computer that splits at the end to a PS/2 "mouse" and USB "mouse+keyboard' connector.

If you only use the USB connector both mouse and keyboard work trough that.
If you use the USB and PS/2 connectors the keyboard is USB and mouse PS/2.
If you use the USB->PS/2 converter plug and native PS/2 connector, you have USB->PS/2 converter for keyboard and the native PS/2 connector for the mouse.

You could check online for a USB to PS/2 splitter cable that has an out for both keyboard and mouse.
There's plenty of people who use it (I got one from my old keyboard and mouse to be able to plug them into my KVM).

ufayzull · n00b Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 54

Drewgrange,
Could you post your xorg.conf, at least parts where keyboard and mouse defined?
I just got the same LX710 combo, having a working xorg.conf would give me a head start

Thanks!

Drewgrange · Guru Joined: 29 Mar 2003 Posts: 483 Location: Ohio, US

ufayzull, sorry I didn't see your post until just now. In case you still need it, or somebody else who searches and finds this thread, here are the relevant parts of my xorg.conf with the LX710. Keep in mind that none of the multimedia keys work or will work until the USB keyboard stuff is fixed in the kernel, as discussed earlier in the thread.

ufayzull · n00b Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 54

Drewgrange,
Thanks a lot for the reply. I just got last pieces for the PC I was building and will give it a try tomorrow...

ufayzull · n00b Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 54

OK I got it kinda working with above config, just regular buttons.

But today I ran into this weird problem. If I enable S/PDIF output on my sound card I lose total control of my mouse and keyboard. I'm still in the middle of setting everything up so I just have mplayer for now. So if I run mplayer with digital output my mouse and keyboard stop working and I have to wait till mplayer finishes and then I get my mouse and keyboard back.

I'm running kernel 2.6.19-beyond2 and alsa-driver-1.0.14_rc1
Motherboard is Asus M2NPV with nforce 430 chipset

First I thought it is something wrong with alsa, as I had few minor problems getting alsa to work, but then I replaced LX710 mouse/keyboard combo with regular usb mouse and keyboard and everything works fine.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I really need S/PDIF output and wireless mouse/keyboard. I'll try to upgrade my kernel to latest gentoo-sources and see if it helps.