Intro + Wii Remote Driver: XWii

Hi…I’m gonna skip the intro. Just go click “About” on the right there.

XWii

The Wii Remote is amazing, but did you know that it is a Bluetooth device? That’s right, any bluetooth-enabled computer can use a Wii remote,with or without a Wii (the Wii might steal your signal though, so I don’t recommend that).

Now, before you rush out to Fry’s, how about compiling the driver first? But, if you’re a Ubuntu user and search for “Wii Remote Driver”, you’ll most likely find “libcwiid0″, “wminput”, “wmgui”, etc. The problem with these, though, is that they require superuser permission (run as admin). I recommend you use a different driver.

Introducing XWii. It’s a Wiimote driver that runs completely doesn’t use “sudo” or “su”. To setup:

1) Download and unpack archive.
2) Open a terminal, and “cd” into the directory you unpacked the source into
3) Copy, paste, and run:
sudo apt-get -y --force-yes install libbluetooth-dev libxtst-dev libsdl1.2-dev libgl1-mesa-dev && make

Ok, now you can rush to Fry’s to get a Bluetooth dongle, and 2 Wiimotes, and also go to Radioshack to buy an IR (infrared) LED. Don’t contradict me, just go!

Anyways, to launch XWii, enter ./xwii something in the XWii directory. something can be one of the files in the profiles folder, like “profiles/nunchuck_n64.xwii” for a mapping to N64 controls (*cough*mupen64*cough*), or you can make your own file. They have pretty good docs here.

“Ew, I have to open the terminal everytime I have to use the Wii remote?”

Fine, weakling, here, save these two files:

xwii-select.sh

#!/bin/bash
#requires zenity
xwiipath=<path to XWii>
if [ $1 -ne "" ] ; then
$xwiipath/xwii $1
else
$xwiipath/xwii `zenity –file-selection –title ‘Select your Wii remote profile.’`
fi


You could just double-click this, but you have to give it executable permission (in GNOME, right-click, open “Properties”, go to “Permissions”, and select “Allow executing file as program”) first.

Or you could save this to your desktop.

xwii.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=XWii
Exec=bash <path to xwii-select.sh>/xwii-select.sh %U
Categories=Application;Utility;


If you think that’s ugly, append Icon=<put your own icon (absolute file name) here> to that.

If you don’t want to select the profile every single damn time (I think you can drag and drop the profile right on that .desktop file, but I’m not too sure), put the path to the profile you want instead of “%U”.

Wiimote Whiteboard

Why did I ask command you to get an IR LED? This:

The guy’s name is Johnny Chung Lee, the Coolest Guy of the Month. He has more sock-knocker-offers in his site, but only this whiteboard one has been ported to Linux (you can try them in Wine, I haven’t): http://code.google.com/p/linux-whiteboard/

Go to downloads and select the latest version to download, install with “Open With..Gdebi” or double-click it from your file manager.

Now, I haven’t actually tried it, so here’s where I leave you off. You should just have to find the app under “Applications” -> “Accessories” or something.