I'm trying to use Pd as a simple glue layer to convert gamepad input into midi. I'm having a really hard time getting the joystick object to work reliably. I'm using Ubuntu and a scavenged Rock Band PS2 drumkit. The kit works great in the joystick control panel in the system settings.

In PD, I tried using /dev/input/js0 (which is the joystick), but the joystick object doesn't seem to recognize it. All the /dev/input/event* files are, I guess, what it wants, but I has no access unless running sudo, in which case there are problems getting the Jack midi connection to Hydrogen to work (unless maybe I run Hydrogen sudo also? ). Any hints on how to do this?

try the [hid] object with root permissions.

@benchang said:

In PD, I tried using /dev/input/js0 (which is the joystick), but the joystick object doesn't seem to recognize it. All the /dev/input/event* files are, I guess, what it wants, but I has no access unless running sudo, in which case there are problems getting the Jack midi connection to Hydrogen to work (unless maybe I run Hydrogen sudo also? ). Any hints on how to do this?

You COULD run jack and pd as root. A lot of people do this to get realtime performance from their linux setups. Hans C-S is the man to talk to about [HID], and he seems to log on once and a while and answer all of the hanging questions related to his projects at once...