What I mean is that I have a generic controller (xbox button scheme) where there is a dedicated guide button that normally starts up big picture mode. Minor issue, but still annoys me. This is actually similar issue to my Wacom tablet one, because I actually fixed this issue by uninstalling the flatpak version of Steam and installing nonbinary version, but again as I rebooted, it forgot it. Not sure if this is relevant, but when the controller was working the way it was supposed to the name on the steam settings wasn't it what it was supposed to (it is a chinese brand so who knows). Anyway I want that guide button working the way it is supposed and stay like that. Please help me, thank you
I cheated again using Brave Search's A.i. result:
" Yes, you can assign specific button mappings to a generic or unbranded Xbox-style controller on Steam in Ubuntu 24.04 , provided you enable the appropriate configuration support within Steam Input.
To configure specific purposes for your buttons:
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Enable Generic Support : Navigate to Steam > Settings > Controller > General Controller Settings and check the box for Generic Gamepad Configuration Support . This allows Steam to recognize the device as a standard gamepad rather than ignoring it or treating it as a basic XInput device.
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Per-Game Remapping : Open Big Picture Mode , select a specific game from your library, and choose Manage Game > Controller Configuration . This interface allows you to map any physical button on your generic controller to specific keyboard keys, mouse actions, or other controller inputs unique to that game.
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Global vs. Per-Game Limits : While you can create detailed layouts for individual games, note that generic XInput controllers share global button mappings across all devices of the same type on the system. You cannot assign different default mappings to multiple generic controllers simultaneously unless they are uniquely identified by the OS (which generic controllers often are not).
If the controller is not recognized automatically, you may need to ensure the steam-devices package is installed on Ubuntu to provide the necessary udev rules for input permissions.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."
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I'm sure people can get an LLM generated answer anywhere if they'd want to. The problem is it can only plagiarise answers already written on the internet or make stuff up. So (speaking for myself) I'd be asking here because I'd want to hear from another OS user. It seems like the generated answer is just taken from one of the many LLM spam sites that paraphrase the official Steam help centre and does not answer the actual question being posed.
@Krisu did you ever get it working the way you wanted?
I am here because I want to solve a different problem, I was hoping it is related enough that it could benefit us both though.
(OS 18.1 Pro, flatpak Steam) I have an ancient wired black Xbox 360 controller, but the guide button only launches the Steam flatpack. It sometimes gives it focus, but more pathetically it merely just gives a notification that "Steam is ready" on the taskbar and doesn't give it focus. (None of the 'chords' or mapped mouse controls actually work so you can't bring it into focus with the gamepad alone.)
And more importantly it is just the normal steam desktop application opening the store or library, not big picture mode. I know from terminal I can use steam -gamepadui or in my case flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam -gamepadui works sometimes, because it only works when no other instance of Steam is running, and I can't seem to configure it for the guide button on the genuine Xbox controller.
Now in theory I could just kill Steam or its flatpak but that seems like a bad idea since Steam can still be writing cloud saves or updating runtimes (Proton) or gamefiles while no interface is visible to the user. So that would just lead to tens of new problems down the road.
Is this something that has been solved before? I haven't seen any Gnome extensions either. Also the flatpak Steam correctly switches to BigPicture when using remote play or when clicking it by mouse cursor so clearly it can do it if I knew where to change the controller response. I assume being able to set steam -gamepadui for your own controller somehow or with a helper program might fix your generic controller problem too!
Well i posted this to another area but the flatpak version of steam seems to have troubles on zorin you need the .deb version from steam ill post the link to it
uninstall the flatpak version and download this one should be in .deb form just double click the download and follow the instructions
I know the apt install of Steam has been preferred since 2014 or something but the flatpack of Steam does actually run games fine on this machine. The gamepads work ingame and in BigPicture mode is fine as well once it is open. Can combine apt steam-devices too. Maybe OP needs the apt version of that package or maybe they had it but dissapeared since it wasn't installed manually.
In your specific situation, Flatpak is indeed part of the problem, just not the whole problem.
Launching the Flatpak uses Flatpak desktop integration. It launches a generic existing instance rather than creating a new one, so it lacks a place to inject additional startup options.
This is why you see only "Steam is ready" - it launches that existing configuration, never passing the parameter -gamepadui into a newly created process.
Launching the APT supplied package with the parameter should create a new instance that passes the parameter forward.
It also is probably the only way to do it, since the remainder of the issue is due to Valve reserving the Guide Button configuration as a system button. It doesn't expose it to the desktop.
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That makes sense, even on older windows systems it is a problem that it merely opens another instance of Steam that simply sees the other is already running without being like 'hey what about big picture mode'...
Pretty good the APT or deb packages take care of this. I was wondering if it could be hacked into my own little hotkey to my own script or by messing around with the system/session bus in flatseal but good to know it is a dead end. Thank you for reiterating this for my problem.
I'm probably going to reinstall this machine next month anyway and will give the apt Steam way another go. (unrelated but the vendor installed it in Dutch and even changing the display language back to English I had to rename a bunch of folders/configs and they didn't leave any overprovisioning on the SSD. I'm just happy enough I could buy it with something not-windows preinstalled to save me time during my evaluation period.)
That makes me wonder what happened to OP though with their gamepad behaviour changing and showing up differently in Steam. Valve changing something about steam-devices? Kernel update? The controller pulling a firmware update somehow? Or the controller having a mode switch on the back to report as xinput or something else? I know some controllers that can switch between 2.4 Ghz propiatary wireless dongle and BT and they show up as different devices entirely. And some BT controllers have had firmware updates that remove older standards and only run in more modern low energy BT modes so that gets pretty confusing if you then try to pair it to an older device 