Basically the title. I have no idea what’s in the market, how much that would cost, or even where to look.
I want to spend as little as possible for a setup that works on Linux (in Steam with Proton).
I’m not a simracer, I just want to be able to stay on the road in My Winter Car.
I think they all work, they’re just funny joysticks.
I use a Logitech G920 with pedals and gear stick, which (as far as I remember) worked out of the box.
I used to have the simpler (and much cheaper) Logitech Driving Force GT, which had accelerate/brake pedals, but didn’t have a clutch or proper gearstick, but did have a sort of “up/down gear changer” sort of thing.
Anyway, they basically both worked on Linux.
I use pyLinuxWheel for configuration, but think Oversteer is generally used by most people these days.
[Edit]
Logitech Driving Force GT
between £30 and £150 2nd handLogitech G920
£100 - £150 2nd hand
£170 - £230 newTry a £30 Driving Force GT. If you don’t like it, you’ve not lost too much. Resell it for £30 again. If you love it, but start dreaming of clutch control and manual gear shifting, then you know you need to invest more.
I still use my Logitech G27 i bought over a decade ago and feature wise its all i ever need. I even spent some money to try out a few 15k-65k€ simrigs at a venue for an hour or so. They were cool and much better than my plastic toy steering wheel. But tbh even a 1000€ rig would be wasted on me for just dicking around those few hours in a year. Biggest downside is how loud these Logitech wheels are. Constant rattling and gear grinding which can annoy even people which sit two rooms away. In that regard a cheap(ish(!)) entry level direct drive wheel would be much better.
A good starting point for checking out compatibility is:
https://github.com/berarma/oversteer
and for Logitech wheels:
https://github.com/berarma/new-lg4ff
Installation on CachyOS via the AUR was piss easy. Button mappings are different on the G27 compared to the Windows drivers though. Which can be slightly annoying because pre-configuered ingame bindings dont make sense anymore. Oversteer has a lovely UI/UX compared to the 20 year old Logitech Windows drivers. FFB effects with the new-lg4ff stuff is perfect.
Another big positive is just how many games are supporting Logitech wheels out of the box. Support for fancier stuff can be a lot more flakey. But tbh thats just my impressions from what i read over the years on the internet. IDK.
Maybe someone else has some insights for the fancier stuff on Linux. Personally(!) i would suggest to look out for well supported Logitech wheels from the links above on the used market.
I found a T300RS used with a TH8A shifter, I installed a DKMS kernel module to make it work. I’m running CachyOS on my desktop. Happy with the wheel, its quite a bit better than an equivalent Logi, though I eventually want to upgrade to a DD wheel with better pedals.
Buy something used. My Logitech mono still works after 25 years.
Join this community to get help setting things up on linux:
A place for all the niche of niche gamers to discuss and join other simracers!
Join the Simracing space here https://matrix.to/#/#simracing:matrix.orgYou will likely get good infos about good cheap Linux compatible wheels as well.
I have the Thrustmaster T150, it was the cheapest you could get at the time (at least if you exclude the ones without force feedback which aren’t even worth getting imo) and I can confirm that it works on Linux.
I don’t know if anything has changed over the last year but my personal experience with Thrustmaster is that it does not work out of the box. Maybe the T150 fares better but my T300RS needed a third party kernel module and some extra configuring in Oversteer. Had to ditch Bazzite to even get it working because the immutable nature of Bazzite made it impossible to add the module.
If I had to recommend a steering wheel for Linux I’d recommend Logitech because they tend to have the most support.
When I first got it I was still on Arch and I also needed to install a kernel module but as far as I remember, I didn’t need to install anything to make it work on Fedora. I assume the driver is part of the kernel now, so it’s probably the same on other distros. Logitech might have better support but if nothing changed since then, the cheapest Logitech wheel is still a good bit more expensive than the T150.
Tbf most, if not all wheels dont work (fully) out of the box. Even with Logitech wheels you want the better new-lg4ff module. I also ditched Bazzite a year ago because i couldnt get it to work. Irc Bazzite since then implemented some of these modules? But i havent looked into it since i’m now happy with CachyOS.
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Steering wheel support on Linux in general isn’t great but out of all the manufacturers Logitech wheels (at least to my knowledge) tend to get the most support and as I understand is at least usable out of the box. If you for whatever reason can’t install new-lg4ff (for example you have secure boot enabled in which case going through the process of registering the module is well beyond the capabilities of the average user) the logitech steering wheel should still work for most games but a Thrustmaster wheel would be completely unusable without the necessary module.
For the price of a brand new Logitech wheel, you can get a much better Moza wheel. So, if cheap is what you want, don’t buy Logitech new. There are better options than Logitech at that price point. Either get the cheapest new wheel (under $200 USD) or get a used Logitech. I went with the used Logitech. It works. I have no complaints. If I were ever to upgrade, I think I would definitely go for the Moza R3 bundle.
