RPi/en

Warning: RPi support should be considered as experimental. Be prepared to face issues if you try GIMX on the RPi.

GIMX can run on many Linux targets, and the the Raspberry Pi is one of them!

Hardware considerations

Use a USB HUB only if there are no ports available on the RPi.
It is highly recommended to use a HUB with an external power supply.

Firmware update

As early firmwares had severe USB issues it is recommended to update the firmware before using GIMX.
Updating the firmware may also be useful if you plan to use a Logitech force feedback wheel (the uhid kernel module was missing in earlier firmwares).
Type the following command:

sudo rpi-update
sudo reboot

If you have issues with the latest firmware, install the following instead:

sudo rpi-update 771a503cfc2a1130e2df2a4ddfc45ffa0f592b3f
sudo reboot

Tested Rpi firmware:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 4.1.21+ #873 Mon Apr 11 18:00:37 BST 2016 armv6l GNU/Linux

USB adapter using the on-board UART interface

Hardware requirements

The on-board UART runs at 0V/3.3V levels, and the AVR USB board has to run at 5V to operate at 16MHz (running at 3.3V would only allow to operate at 8MHz).
Connecting the RPi and the AVR USB board directly may damage the hardware!
One cheap solution is to use a voltage divider:

• Connect both GNDs
• It's safe to connect the TXD pin of the RPi to the Rx pin of the AVR USB board (the GIMX firmwares configure the Rx pin as an input)
• To connect the Tx pin of the AVR USB board to the RXD pin of the RPi, you'll need to convert the voltage level from 0..5V to 0..3.3V.
  

This can be done with a simple resistive divider:

Vin is the Tx pin of the AVR USB board, Vout is the RXD pin of the RPi, R1=2.2kΩ , R2=3.3kΩ

• Do not connect any other pin!

Sotware adjustments

By default, the RPi UART is configured as a serial console.
Disable this serial console using raspi-config:

sudo raspi-config 

Then select:

"Advanced Options", "Serial", "No", "Finish"

The default configuration does not allow high baudrates.
Enable high baudrates editing /boot/config.txt:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add the following line at the end of the file:

init_uart_clock=8000000 

Reboot to apply the changes:

sudo reboot

GIMX installation

wget https://gimx.fr/download/gimx-raspbian -O gimx.deb
sudo dpkg -i gimx.deb
sudo apt-get -f install

If you get a "Dependency is not satisfiable: ..." error message, upgrade Raspbian:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Stop/disable triggerhappy service

Triggerhappy is a daemon that opens every input device for reading, and that consumes a few percent of the CPU time.

It seems a good idea to stop it while running GIMX.

To stop triggerhappy:

sudo service triggerhappy stop

To disable triggerhappy:

sudo update-rc.d triggerhappy disable

Run GIMX

Read the Quick start page to learn how to run GIMX through the GUI.
A good idea is to run GIMX directly from a terminal, without starting a graphical session, which can be done over the network, using a ssh client, or you can #Autostart GIMX at boot without GUI
Ideally, GIMX should be launched without using the Ethernet port (because it is connected on the USB bus).
More details on command line options on this page.

Autostart GIMX at boot without GUI

Simply create a file /etc/systemd/system/gimx.service (as root) with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=GIMX  
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
User=pi  
Type=simple  
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gimx -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -c LogitechDrivingForceGT_G29.xml --nograb  
Restart=always  
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Replace ttyUSB0 with your device and LogitechDrivingForceGT_G29.xml with your mapping file (which should be available in the pi home directory as /home/pi/.gimx/config/LogitechDrivingForceGT_G29.xml)

Run

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

to notify systemd about the new file and

sudo systemctl enable gimx && sudo systemctl start gimx

to enable the gimx service start at boot and start it in the same line.

Notify when GIMX is running using a led

In order to have a proper confirmation about if the gimx service is up and running, you can add a simple python script that turns a led on if the gimx service is running.

The file will be located at /home/pi/blink.py:

#!/usr/bin/python
import os  
import time  
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

led = 23  
button = 18  
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)  
GPIO.setup(led, GPIO.OUT)  
GPIO.setup(button, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down = GPIO.PUD_UP)

def Shutdown(channel):  
  GPIO.output(led, True)
  time.sleep(0.2)
  GPIO.output(led, False)
  time.sleep(0.2)
  GPIO.output(led, True)
  time.sleep(0.2)
  GPIO.output(led, False)
  os.system("sudo shutdown -h now")

GPIO.add_event_detect(18, GPIO.FALLING, callback = Shutdown, bouncetime = 2000)

while True:  
  found = False
  time.sleep(5)
  pids = [pid for pid in os.listdir('/proc') if pid.isdigit()]
  for pid in pids:
    try:
      cmd = open(os.path.join('/proc', pid, 'cmdline'), 'rb').read()
      if "gimx" in cmd:
        found = True
    except IOError: # proc has already terminated
      continue
  if found == True:
    GPIO.output(led, True)
  else:
    GPIO.output(led, False)

As a bonus, you can add a button so when it is pressed, there is a little blink effect, and the pi is shutted down.

To start at boot, simply add it to the pi user crontab (crontab -e) as

@reboot python /home/pi/blink.py &