This is cool! Still reading over the wiki yet, but do you know what they term multiplexing controllers as? I'd like to learn how they implement the same controller assist functionality for merging simultaneous inputs for the same axis.
There's very little documentation on how the property game consoles implement this accessibility feature, and I'd love to learn how others have implemented the signal mixing logic from a multi user input perspective.
Admittedly, it's pretty niche software. But for those who grew up using equivalents on gaming consoles such as Xbox or PlayStation, it was (still is) a pivotal accessibility feature.
And it's not necessarily only for those with physical disabilities or reflexive motor skill issues. Sometimes you'd like to introduce a really good story based game to a novice player that you know just doesn't have (yet or never) the coordination or muscle memory to complete it.
My grandparents never grew up playing videogames, and some of my nieces and nephews in the family are too young to grasp complex game mechanics. However, all of them really enjoyed playing with a control assist, where they could take the initiative in gameplay, like choosing dialogue options, steering saddled horses, flying broomsticks, exploring the world at their discretion, and I could just coast along in the backseat, fixing their camera angles, steering them back on course when lost, rescuing them in high stake combat encounters, etc.
In some ways, you could think about it as co-oping for single player games, but because it's per controller, you can do the same thing for multiplayer games as well. Like to help level the age gap in PvP games with your older sister versus your younger brother.
Before we ever played with control assist, I tried the classic method of tossing around the one controller like a hot potato, but it's just not the same in a number of ways. For one, having to relinquish a single controller really breaks immersion, as your suddenly fumbling about between living room chairs only your game characters on death's door from an unexpected boss encounter. It also deprives them of that haptics, where they can learn more easily attack patterns or UX interaction that conventionally telegraph via force feedback.
There is perhaps some functionality for solo players as well, such as splitting hand control across multiple gamepads. Like if your hands/arms were of different sizes, or you wanted to play other than with the controller on your lap, you could just easily dual wield controllers mux together the left and right sides-in-reach, or mux a regular handheld gamepad with something more like a Xbox Adaptive Controller for when dexterity or convenience demands.
Although, I think the majority of folks will find the assist co-op scenario for single player games the most appealing aspect. As others have replied on prior release posts, like parents helping their kids through their first playthrough ever, it's really an underrated feature for game consoles, and bringing that to gaming on Linux was really appreciated.
Thank you for all the efforts the admins put into maintaining this place!
oh, my hand typing was atrocious, that's what I get for not voice dictating with my regular assistive tech.
Indeed it's just a placeholder logo until a real human artist would like to contribute, as I'm no talented graphics designer myself. I still think it serves a purpose to quickly and visually illustrate what the project does, as all of the key words and terminology used by similar efforts never reached a consensus or becoming a household names.
Xbox initially called this Copilot (lol, on brand), Apple calls this buddy mode, PlayStation just filled it under Accessโข, so something to link words to an intuition is better than nothing at the moment. If you have any suggested SEO for folks to find this is that's what their looking for, let me know. I've been in the trench for too long to know less technical jargon folks would use.
I'm also already transparent in using AI for rubber duck sessions in the public pull requests, so anyone agents AI would already probably object to its origins.
I'm no graphic artist, and with my disabilities it certainly would have taken me much longer to type out the same docs. Also, emojiis is what I grew up with back when AOL chat and sms char limits where the norm. LLMs have been a boon for assistive technology users, but admittedly a crux for those who less experience in computer science; though not much different from any double edge sword.
Full disclosure AI is used, but I keep all transparent. You can read through GitHub PR reviews I use Copilot to rubber duck with, and committed the No Banana prompt for the banner logo in case folks where curious. I've a disability that impairs my typing, partly the motivation behind developing this projects, so I also use LLM to grammatically correct and format my voice dictated commits and tickets.
Indeed, I've encountered a few games on Steam that gracefully switch multiple controllers, but only by giving exclusive input on a first come-first-serve bases (i.e. which ever controller moves first after some cool down of inactivity from both). Hollow Knight: Silksong being one such example, as I couldn't necessarily drive separate axis from different controllers simultaneously, thus one such motivation for passing the game only one virtual controller and optionally hiding the rest to avoid input conflicts.
I'd be happy if Steam were to adopt such an accessibility feature into Steam input directly, much like Xbox and PlayStation. Perhaps they'll take more of an interest in multi controller configurations with the upcoming refresh of the Steam Controller, given the wireless dongle is meant for multi device pairing.
I could imagine bootstrapping via Bell Labs Unix from the 90's would be more authentic, yet demanding LFS experience. I wonder how far back computer historians could bootstrap up to a modern compiler for integrity and verification purposes?
https://www.owlfolio.org/research/bootstrapping-trust-in-compilers/
https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/unix_fourth_edition_tape_rediscovered/
You should be able to rebuild offline if the minimal change set is self contained enough, as in purely local. Did you update any other inputs? I guess you could be missing some kind of extra TLS or CA store dependency for adding custom CAs, but that doesn't seem likely for regular NixOS install. I use flakes instead of channels, so I wouldn't know what else may be blocked you. A stdout log may showcase your error more clearly.
Encountered an odd Bluetooth issue last week with a motherboard that had a combined Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radio chip set. Wi-Fi worked, but the Bluetooth hardware wasn't even detected. This was after migrating from a Windows install with known working Bluetooth drivers on the same motherboard.
Found a solved thread for the same motherboard SKU where power cycling after disconnecting the desktop power supply from AC for 30 sec resolved it. Didn't believe it, but tried it anyway and it worked. Guessing the Windows driver must have put the Bluetooth transceiver in a funny state that the mainline Linux kernel couldn't recover, but resting the chipset with a through power cycle with internal voltage supplies zeroed made the difference in re-initializing the hardware.
Just a wild suggestion...