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Seems Valve are on a bit of a roll lately fixing up some long-standing issues in the Steam Client for Linux.

They've been releasing quite a number of Beta client updates recently with Linux improvements, like the one last week which had a fix for a this two year old issue where you were unable to move games around if they had files bigger than 2GB.

The latest Beta, released today, fixes another long-standing issue with gamepad Rumble support. Valve said they "Added support for rumble pass-through for virtual controllers. This fixes missing rumble support for any controllers opted into Steam Input, and rumble emulation support for the Steam controller.".

Speaking about it on Twitter, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais said "Today's Steam client update adds support for rumble for emulated controllers; this required working around a kernel bug, which we're also fixing upstream: https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-input/msg61613.html".

Happy to see this getting attention, as someone who makes heavy use of their Steam Controller. Although testing a few games earlier with it turned on (DiRT 4, Bastion, Rocket League, BallisticNG) it still didn't give me any Rumble oddly. Possible I'm missing something as I've seen reports of it working sometimes for others.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, Steam, Valve
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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4 comments

Swingswindle May 23, 2019
I can confirm that rumble is working for me in dirt rally (kind of), but it’s still glitchy, and with my steam controller, it feels like I’m breaking it, so Im gonna leave it for for now. Can’t say that I don’t appreciate the option. Happy to see that valve is continuing to support Linux as a first class os
M@GOid May 23, 2019
I tested the Steam Controller on a couple Unity games, now they have rumble. But in American Truck Simulator, a game with finicky gamepad support, it does not rumble.

As Swingswindle said above, the rumble can be annoying. In Bro Force is very noisy. And that is a flaw in the Steam Controller force feedback hardware, since it was clearly a after thought, as it did not have the rumble weights, maybe to reduce fatigue on a already heavy gamepad. Maybe they can introduce it on a second version, together with a analog pad on the place of the left touchpad.

I also tested with a Dualshock4 gamepad, and the games that already have rumble retained it, but at last in Left 4 Dead 2, it does not introduced rumble on the DS4. Which is as shame, since this game have the best rumble support I have seem on the Steam Controller.
naegling23 May 24, 2019
rumble with the steam controller is partially working in boarderlands 2 (it works with melee combat, but not when im hit or when I fire a gun). I also tried rocket league and horizon chase, but it didnt work there. Xbox one and switch pro controller rumble continues not to work for me on any of the previously listed games.

For what its worth, everything was tested wireless through a steam link, so there might be more to my issue than for others.
TheRiddick May 24, 2019
Proton just got updated to 4.2-5 (was -4 before)
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