I reformatted and installed Ubuntu about eight months ago, and I haven't looked back since. I personally run Ubuntu 13.10 in a home-built quad core gaming rig, which used to run Windows 7 Ultimate 圆4. I know this is an old thread, but I would like to toss in my three cents, adjusted for inflation. It is backlit, and it's supposed to be a nice keyboard. I'm also considering the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard as a possibility, even though it's not specifically a gaming keyboard. There is a thread (with no solutions) on the Sidewinder X4 on ubuntuforums here. I've not seen much to inspire confidence with programmable/macro keys.

I could probably live with dead function keys, as long as they weren't in places that would interfere with things like Unity/compiz shortcuts. Honestly, the only feature I have to have is good backlighting for the keys, and if it's not wired (which is fine), the wireless capability should function. Support might be OK for these, though - there's a short Phoronix article about Roccat improving their Linux support, and there's also a project and webpage for 'Using Roccat Hardware with Linux'. I'm in the U.S., and so it appears that few of the Roccat keyboards are available, and they're over-priced. Compatibility with the current keyboards, Ubuntu version, and Linux kernel are suspect. There are also a number of very old posts around the internet with regard to the Logitech G11 and G15. There's a project called g15tools which has some code to work with older Logitech gaming models, but I don't know what the current status is. Logitech has some models (e.g., the Logitech G110), though again I expect that the extensive macro capabilities (which I don't need) would be lost under Linux. It seems about right for my needs, but I would be depressed having a bunch of useless, nonprogrammable keys on it. (Though here's a post from someone who has a more recent project that uses usbmon and xdotool to add functions to some keys.)Īnother choice in my budget is the Cyborg V.05. Microsoft has a few popular ones (e.g., Sidewinder X4, X6), but the programmable function keys appear to be unusable without the Windows software. I've been looking at gaming keyboards to use on Ubuntu system.

Logitech cyborg keyboard drivers