GLight controls LEDs of some Logitech devices.
Included are the following applications:
- glight.py - commandline app for controlling LED colors of your G-devices
- glight_ui.py - GTK-UI for glight.py
- glight_fx.py - some experiments on changing colors depending on e.g. system load
- Logitech G203 Prodigy Mouse
- Logitech G213 Prodigy Keyboard
Device specific:
- setting a single color for the complete device
- setting different colors for the 5 available segments of the keyboard (G213 only)
- setting a breathing/pulsating color
- setting a color cycle aka. rainbow
Other features:
- load and save light presets for your devices
- service keeps state of the lights and restores it after reboot (so no rainbow on reboot ;)
- a nice UI if you like your software clicky
This was developed an tested on a Xubuntu 16.04 LTS.
It should work on plain Ubuntu and other debian based linux systems. But who knows? :)
As for BSD, OS-X and Windows I just can't tell.
Note: The following requirements can also be installed via the installation script ``support/install-glight``
Python PIP:
sudo apt install python-pip
GTK3:
sudo apt install python-gi python-gi-cairo python3-gi python3-gi-cairo gir1.2-gtk-3.0
libusb1:
sudo pip install libusb1
PyDBUS:
sudo pip install pydbus
Yes, you actually need GTK3 even for the commandline use, because glight.py uses glib.MainLoop() in its libusb1 backend.
(Optional) PyUSB:
sudo pip install pyusb
Use the installation script support/install-glight
You will be either guided through the installation process or get instructions how to install manually based on your choices. You can also consult the chapter "Manual installation" in this readme.
Since communicating with a hid device needs root privileges (at least on my machine) you will have to run these apps either as root, sudoed or run as a (privileged) service.
Setting the color of your G203 mouse to red.
sudo glight.py -d g203 -c ff0000
Before running GLight as a service, you will have install a DBUS-policy. See section "Installing".
Starting the service (privileged).
sudo glight.py --service
Setting the color in client mode. Look mom no sudo ;)
glight.py -C -d g203 -c ff0000
Running the UI using the service.
glight_ui.py
Running the UI using the device directly.
sudo glight_ui.py --direct-mode
Running an effect.
glight_fx.py -C -d g203 -e cpux
Usage:
glight.py [-d [device_name]] [-c color [color ...]]
[-x speed [brightness]]
[-b color [speed [brightness]] [color [speed [brightness]]
...]] [--backend (usb1|pyusb)] [--state-file [filename]]
[--load-state] [--save-state] [-C] [--service] [-l] [-v] [-h]
[--experimental [name [name ...]]]
Changes the colors on some Logitech devices (V0.1)
optional arguments:
-d [device_name], --device [device_name]
set device
-c color [color ...], --color color [color ...]
set color(s)
-x speed [brightness], --cycle speed [brightness]
set color cycle animation
-b color [speed [brightness]], --breathe color [speed [brightness]]
set breathing animation
--backend (usb1|pyusb)
set backend (usb1, pyusb), usb1 is strongly
recommended
--state-file [filename]
file where the state is saved
--load-state load state from state file
--save-state save state to state file
-C, --client run as client
--service run as service
-l, --list list devices
-v, --verbose be verbose
-h, --help show help
--experimental [name [name ...]]
experimental features
Value ranges for each device are:
G203 Mouse (g203)
Color segments: 1
Speed: 1000 .. 20000 (default 11000)
Brightness: 1 .. 100 (default 100)
G213 Keyboard (g213)
Color segments: 6
Speed: 1000 .. 20000 (default 11000)
Brightness: 1 .. 100 (default 100)
Remarks:
Argument "-c color"
If only one color is given, all segments of the keyboard will have the same color.
Argument "--state-file"
Only supported in non-client mode.
Argument "--backend"
The pyusb backend is only there for legacy reasons. Not recommended, because the color changes will not be very reliable.
Moving files around
Create directory '/usr/local/lib/glight'.
mkdir "/usr/local/lib/glight"
Setup proper permissions.
chown root:root "/usr/local/lib/glight" && chmod 755 "/usr/local/lib/glight"
Copy all files from this directory to ''.
cp ../* "/usr/local/lib/glight/"
Setup proper permissions.
chown root:root "/usr/local/lib/glight/glight/.py" && chmod 755 "/usr/local/lib/glight/glight/.py"
Setting up DBUS
The DBUS interface needs a profile, which defines which clients are allowed to connect to it. Copy the file 'etc-dbus-1/de.sgdw.linux.glight.conf' to '/etc/dbus-1/':
cp etc-dbus-1/de.sgdw.linux.glight.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/de.sgdw.linux.glight.conf
Setting up glight as a service
Copy the service script from 'etc-init.d/glight' to '/etc/init.d/glight'
cp etc-init.d/glight /etc/init.d/glight
Setup proper permissions.
chown root:root "/etc/init.d/glight" && chmod 755 "/etc/init.d/glight"
Copy the default config file to '/etc/glight.conf'.
cp etc/glight.conf /etc/glight.conf
Setup proper permissions.
chown root:root "/etc/glight.conf" && chmod 755 "/etc/glight.conf"
Setup runlevel for glight service
You want to start the service at system start.
update-rc.d glight defaults 80 20
Before I bought my G203 and G213 I did some research if those devices are supported on linux. So I stumbled onto SebiTimeWaster's project G213Colors and voila there is some support.
Sadly as SebiTimeWaster mentioned, setting the colors isn't very reliable. So this piqued my interest.
Setting one color at a time worked well. But setting multiple color segments in a quick succession did not work reliable at all. Only the first few segment would be correctly set. Resubmitting the color commands would set some more segments, but never in a reliable fashion.
I tried using delays between commands which didn't work either. Only disconnecting the kernel driver inbetween every command worked, but made it painfully slow.
So I took Wireshark and usbmon to have a look at the underlying protocoll. Thanks to SebiTimeWaster's work, I had a good idea what to look for. Thanks again ;)
Just sending a color command like "11ff0e3d{field}01{color}0200000000000000000000" down the line, did
not do the trick. The G-Device seemed to expect a URB_INTERRUPT bracketing the actual color command.
Protocoll:
HOST > DEVICE : URB_INTERRUPT in "want interrupt" HOST > DEVICE : URB_CONTROL out "color command" DEVICE > HOST : URB_CONTROL out "response" DEVICE > HOST : URB_INTERRUPT out "got interrupt" ... now the device is ready for the next command
Since this wasn't possible using the PyUSB lib, I had to switch to the usb1 which is much more expressive and quite a bit more difficult.
Using this interupt-command structure it was now possible to set the various color effects reliably. If you are interested in the actual commands, have a look at glight.py and the respective classes G203() and G213().
- G213Colors - The project that started all this ;) Thanks!
- https://github.com/SebiTimeWaster/G213Colors
- gseries-tools project:
- https://github.com/GSeriesDev/gseries-tools
- g500 project by Clément Vuchener:
- https://github.com/cvuchener/g500 https://github.com/cvuchener/hidpp
- Julien Danjou reverse engineering the Logitech K750
- https://julien.danjou.info/blog/2012/logitech-k750-linux-support
- 'dslul' trying to decode the G-Protocoll:
- GSeriesDev/gseries-tools#3
- USB in a NutShell - for the nitty gritty technical details
- http://www.beyondlogic.org/usbnutshell/usb1.shtml
- DBUS specification
- https://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#basic-types
- DBUS deamon policies
- https://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-daemon.1.html
- libusb1 - which I ended up using, instead of PyUSB
- https://github.com/vpelletier/python-libusb1
- PyUSB Tutorial (PyUSB is not used anymore by GLight, but i started using this Library)
- https://github.com/walac/pyusb/blob/master/docs/tutorial.rst