Hi @jthaman! The driver is designed to start automatically when you plug a supported kinesis keyboard into the computer (or when the computer starts with one already plugged in). It uses udev rules to detect the added hardware, and udev asks systemd to start the appropriate service. I believe you should see that the driver is running with systemctl status kfreestyle2d when the keyboard is plugged in. If that's not the case, I'm happy to help troubleshoot.

Here is the output of that command, while the freestyle 2 keyboard is plugged in.

× kfreestyle2d.service - Userspace driver for Kinesis Freestyle 2 Keyboard
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/kfreestyle2d.service; static)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2021-11-02 19:07:27 EDT; 50min ago
    Process: 663 ExecStart=/usr/local/share/kfreestyle2d/kfreestyle2d /dev/kfreestyle2-fn (code=exited, status=4)
   Main PID: 663 (code=exited, status=4)
        CPU: 1ms

Nov 02 19:07:27 arch-desktop systemd[1]: Started Userspace driver for Kinesis Freestyle 2 Keyboard.
Nov 02 19:07:27 arch-desktop kfreestyle2d[663]: Unable to open uinput: Permission denied
Nov 02 19:07:27 arch-desktop kfreestyle2d[663]: Unofficial kinesis userspace driver
Nov 02 19:07:27 arch-desktop systemd[1]: kfreestyle2d.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=4/NOPERMISSION
Nov 02 19:07:27 arch-desktop systemd[1]: kfreestyle2d.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
~

@jthaman Huh. So this suggests either that you don't have the uinput kernel module loaded, the udev rules that we provide to modify the permissions on /dev/uinput aren't working, or that the driver is running as the wrong user/group.

Can you share the output of:

cat /etc/modules

ls -l /dev/uinput

lsmod | grep uinput

Sure,

cat /etc/modules:

uinput

ls -l /dev/uinput

crw-rw----+ 1 root root 10, 223 Nov  2 19:07 /dev/uinput

lsmod | grep uinput

< no output for this one>

Okay, so this tells me a few things:

• Your distribution is not respecting /etc/modules. It didn't load the uinput kernel module at boot, which is why lsmod | grep uinput displays nothing. We can force uinput to be loaded with modprobe uinput, but without the permission changes I discuss next that won't help.
• The udev rules that we install to change the permissions of /dev/uinput are not being applied. It should be owned by the input group according to this rule: https://github.com/whereswaldon/kfreestyle2d/blob/master/99-kfreestyle2d.rules.template#L2

Can you check if the udev rules are installed? They should be in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-kfreestyle2d.rules. Maybe just paste that file here?

Sorry, this got lost in the shuffle a few weeks ago. Here is the output of the requested .rules file. I'm using Arch linux, if that matters.

KERNEL=="uinput", GROUP="uinput", MODE:="0660"

# Identify Kinesis products
KERNEL=="hidraw[0-9]*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{idVendor}=="058f", ATTRS{idProduct}=="9410", ENV{KINESIS_PRODUCT}="freestyle2"

# Make Freestyle2 Fn keys readable
ENV{KINESIS_PRODUCT}=="freestyle2", KERNEL=="hidraw[0-9]*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{bInterfaceNumber}=="01", MODE:="0660", GROUP="uinput", SYMLINK="kfreestyle2-fn", RUN+="/bin/systemctl --no-block start kfreestyle2d.service"

Okay @jthaman, these rules look correct to me. I thought Arch would respect /etc/modules, but it seems like you may need to create a config file for Arch to properly load uinput.

Given that you have the right rules, I wonder whether the uinput group exists on your computer. If it doesn't, simply create a system group by that name and try again.

If that still doesn't work, I'm quite confused. I'd recommend trying some of the techniques I used here when I was figuring all of this out in the first place. I'm happy to consult as you go, but I don't have a good sense of what's wrong.

Hello there. Thanks for a driver!

I also had some issues with running driver on Arch Linux.

Problem 1: Load uinput module

What I tried:

1. Add config file to /etc/modprobe.d
   I've created file /etc/modprobe.d/uinput.conf with following contents:

uinput

It didn't work for me, mkinitcpio -P output was:

libkmod: kmod_config_parse: /etc/modprobe.d/uinput.conf line 1: ignoring bad line starting with 'uinput'

2. Add uinput to /etc/modules file. Didn't work silently

3. Create a systemd service, that will load necessary module -- worked for me.

Here's a config for service (I called it /etc/systemd/system/uinput-load.service):

[Unit]
Description=Load uinput kernel module

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/sbin/modprobe uinput

[Install]
WantedBy=sysinit.target

4. Run systemctl enable uinput-load

5. Make kfreestyle2d systemd service run after the module loading service.

Add line to the /etc/systemd/system/kfreestyle2d.service to the [Unit] section:

After=uinput-load.service

Problem 2: Permissions

I can't say if it helped me.
I see that it is partially the same as /etc/udev/rules.d/99-kfreestyle2d.rules.

But still, it looks like a part of my solution 😅

Create udev rule at /etc/udev/rules.d/99-uinput.rules

With following content:

KERNEL=="uinput", MODE="0660", GROUP="uinput"

The group should be the same as in /etc/systemd/system/kfreestyle2d.service

@tatarianBarbarian Would you be interested in opening a PR to add the extra services to the repo? They ought to be portable.

@whereswaldon
Sure. At least I'll try 😅

There's still a lingering permissions issue on Arch Linux related to ACLs on /dev/uinput. I discuss it some here. I'm uncertain what the best, most portable solution is.

However, I tried it again just now (after a reboot) and the issue seems to have self-resolved. I am on Arch on this machine, so perhaps it just takes a reboot?