how to get JInput to work under linux?

[Conzar]

so I put the following dir struction in the same directory as my program and it doesn't work:

plugins/linux/src/native/libjinput.so

This is the same as whats in the nightly builds as well as cvs.

[endolf]

Hi
 Ok, I was wrong, the binaries are not right. In your classpath you need jinput.jar and jutils.jar then in the directory you run from you need a controller directory that contains libjinput.so and linux.jar

The test I did was to create a new empty directory, I copied the jinput.jar and jutils.jar to that directory, I created a controller directory and copied libjinput.so and linux.jar to the controller directory so I ended up with

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./jinput.jar ./jutils.jar ./controller/libjinput.so ./controller/linux.jar

and then ran

1	java -cp jinput.jar:jutils.jar net.java.games.input.test.ControllerTextTest

it found the linux plugin fine.

You can move jinput.jar and jutils.jar around as long as you update your classpath. If you move the plugin then you must use the plugin property to cope.

For example, with a fresh copy of the binary the following command works

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java -cp coreAPI/bin/jinput.jar:\ coreAPI/lib/jutils.jar:\ plugins/linux/bin/linux.jar \ -Djava.library.path=plugins/linux/src/native \ -Djinput.plugins=net.java.games.input.LinuxEnvironmentPlugin \ net.java.games.input.test.ControllerTextTest

Note that the library path needs to be updated so that the .so can be loaded.

Cheers

Endolf

[Conzar]

Hey.
That clears a bunch up.  Thank you for posting that mini-howto.

I ran the  net.java.games.input.test.ControllerTextTest and all it did was show that it indeed found the linux plugin but thats all it did.  I am guessing that it couldn't find any devices and so exited.  

Thats what happened to the previous KeyboardTest.java program did when I ran it (below is the output of that prog --- it gets a null pointer b/c it needs at least 1 device there for it to work properly).  

Anyways, I am running the 2.6.1 kernel so shouldn't the keyboard and mouse be reconigzed by jinput?

Thanks

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mspeth@fmp keyboard $ ./run Scanning jar: linux.jar Examining file : META-INF/ Examining file : META-INF/MANIFEST.MF Examining file : net/ Examining file : net/java/ Examining file : net/java/games/ Examining file : net/java/games/input/ Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxDevice$LinuxHat.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxDevice$ButtonID.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxDevice$1.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxDevice.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxAxis.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxEnvironmentPlugin.class Found candidate class: net/java/games/input/LinuxEnvironmentPlugin.class Adding class to plugins:net.java.games.input.LinuxEnvironmentPlugin Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxKeyboard$KeyID.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxKeyboard.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxMouse$LinuxMouseBall.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxMouse$LinuxMouseButtons.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxMouse$LinuxMouseButton.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxMouse.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/LinuxNativeTypesMap.class Examining file : net/java/games/input/NativeDefinitions.class cont: 0 Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException         at KeyboardTest.keyboardupdate(KeyboardTest.java:20)         at KeyboardTest.<init>(KeyboardTest.java:15)         at KeyboardTest.main(KeyboardTest.java:32)

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[endolf]

Hi
 glad it's finding the plugin now. The output from ControllerTextTest would be far more useful. I can't do it now, but there is an option in the native build.xml that can be set to have the library dump a whole load of debug at runtime, I think i might try setting it in this case.
 You are right, under 2.6.* if you have a k/b plugged in it should be detected, if you have a mouse installed with a driver (usb, ps/2) then it should pick that up too. As long as you have /dev/input/event* devices for them that is, and with read and write permissions for the user running the code.

HTH

Endolf

[TheBohemian]

Although placing the plugin files inside the 'controller' directory works nice I think it was meant more like this:

<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin/linux.jar
<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin/libjinput.so

The reason for that additional directory is to handle different version of the same library. eg:

<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin1.0/linux.jar
<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin1.0/libjinput.so
<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin1.2/linux.jar [same file as above]
<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin1.2/libjinput.so [updated or simply a custom build]

This will actually double the amount of devices available to your apps when you do that with two identical plugins.
So imagine someone writes that "flock of birds"-plugin it can be installed like this.

<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin/linux.jar
<some dir>/controller/linux-plugin/libjinput.so
<some dir>/controller/fob-linux/fob-jinput-linux.jar
<some dir>/controller/fob-linux/libfobjinput.so

Currently nobody will run into problems by not using an additional subdirectory but as soon as there is more than one plugin available for a specific platform confusion may start.

[Jeff]

yes. It was also desigend that way for another reason.

People tend to name their DLLs with common names.  Things like "joystick.dll".  These can clash if ist all in one directory and make it impossible to use two plug-ins together.

A jar name clash can be sovled by renaming the Jar but the DLL name is hrdocded generally in the jar and can't be changed.

The subdirectory system is ther to support different plugins, written independantly, that share DLL (or for that matter jar) names.