| ▲ | isityettime 3 hours ago | |
Configurable peripherals should store their configurations entirely on-board, and they should be configurable using a well-understood protocol. Users can then use either the vendor's application, a common third-party application, or the configuration interface native to their desktop environment to configure them. When they plug them into a new machine, they should just keep working without having to install any configuration software. Many generations of Roccat peripherals were usable this way on Linux, thanks to the work of one generous volunteer who reverse-engineered them. Companies like Logitech don't store their devices' configs in firmware in a way that "forces" you to run some additional shit to use all of their features (some features aren't implemented in software). It's a convenient excuse that allows them to push their spyware onto users, but it's totally unnecessary. A vendor that was actually "user friendly" in the deep sense (opposite of "user hostile") would do this themselves; configuration would be upstream-first via libratbagd or whatever, and then they'd provide their own configuration interface as a value-add for a uniform cross-platform experience, or in areas where they thought they could provide a better UI than the design principles of KDE and GNOME, or so that they could have a uniform interface to refer to in their documentation. | ||