Gamepad in Linux

[RobinVossen]

I want to buy a gamepad.
So that I can play on a Lazy Sunday Snes games on my pc from my bed.
But I am scared id buy the wrong one.
I wonder. Has anyone here already install a Gamepad once? And made it work with Anykind of snes emulator?
The gamepad needs to have 4 buttons, 'arrow' keys, start+Select, two Shoulder and a Button I can use to access the Menu (so I can start a new game/save or whatever) and one that I can use for FastForward. (Else Final Fantasy takes to long )
Guess its going to be a Logitech, since they are reliable.
Well, can anyone help me on this one?

Cheers,
Robin

[techieMoe]

I have a Gravis USB Destroyer Tiltpad with 4 buttons and 2 flippers on the top. It was originally marketed as a motion-sensitive device but that feature never really worked right. It works just fine as a plain 6-button game pad though.

I think any reasonably generic USB gamepad will work fine. You may have to install some joystick libraries and a calibration program, but that's about it. Oh, and don't pay too much for one. I picked mine up at Half Price Books for $4.99USD.

[RobinVossen]

Well, I looked around on the net and I saw LOTS of people had problems with it..
I really dont want to get that.
So.. well thanks alot
But is there anyother person with experince?

[bigtomrodney]

I bought another generic type one from Trust. It was about €10. I used to be able to configure it in YaST in SUSE but most distros don't bother with a configuration tool for pads. Howevere Zsnes is great, and once the device is recognised as /dev/js0 or /dev/input/js0 or similar it can detect and configure it internally. I've use the pad on every distro through Mandrake 9.x through SUSE 9.3-10.3 and Ubuntu Dapper-Feisty.

The trick is don't go buying some crazy fancy pad. Let's face it should only be a digital pad to run Snes or Genesis/Megadrive games. Anything that claims to not need a driver or work on Mac (if not specifically Linux) should be a start.

[RobinVossen]

Yea, I dont think Id buy a Rumble-Pad. (Why whould I want that -.-' )
And well I run Gentoo so that makes it a little bit harder.. I hate Trust.. I never buy their hardware anymore.
But thanks for the Advice. Id buy a really Easy/Clear Controller for about 10$ that does nothing more then just work
No wireless/rumblepad/Flashy stuff.
Thanks alot.

[techieMoe]

If you can still find one, an old Gravis GamePad (looks like a SNES controller minus the top flippers) would probably do you just fine. Some were USB, others were joystick ports. I found one of those at a computer shop a few years back for 99 cents.

I wasn't recommending that you get my particular kind of gamepad, but I am interested to hear what problems other people have had with it. I've had none in Linux or OS X.

[RobinVossen]

Nah I guess I cant use that since it has Not Enough Features.
I have a Ichy Fast-Forward Finger. So I want to enable myself to FastForward very easy.

Thanks anyhow, I guess it will be a cheap one that does do its job

Thanks all.

[Topic Solved]