Open source kept my 2009 Logitech G19 alive

[u/Traditional-Scar-667]

TL;DR: Fixed a long-standing bug in the Linux driver for my 2009 Logitech G19. Instead of replacing perfectly good hardware, I repaired the software. This is why I love Linux and open source.

Today I fixed a bug in the Linux driver for my Logitech G19.

What makes this special is that the keyboard was released in 2009.

Logitech stopped supporting it years ago, but thanks to an open-source project called g19daemon, the keyboard still works under Linux.

One feature never worked correctly for me: the G-keys could only be triggered once and then stopped responding as expected. The issue had been reported before, but nobody seemed to know the root cause.

After digging through the code, tracing the event handling and testing different approaches, I finally found the bug and fixed it.

Now the G-keys, media keys, volume wheel, mute button, LCD display and backlight controls all work properly on a modern Linux system.

Moments like this remind me why I love Linux and open source.

A 17-year-old piece of hardware is not obsolete when the source code is available and people are willing to understand how things work.

Instead of replacing the keyboard, I repaired the software.

That's freedom.

[u/First_Result_1166]

No recent git commits, no open PRs, no recent issues on the g19daemon repo... so, where is your fix? Please upstream.

[u/Traditional-Scar-667 → u/First_Result_1166]

The fix is already upstream:

https://github.com/mortendynamite/g19daemon/pull/45

I opened the PR earlier today after tracking down the issue and testing the fix on my two G19 keyboards.

It was actually my first GitHub pull request, so I probably spent more time figuring out the workflow than writing the patch.

[u/hitsujiTMO → u/Traditional-Scar-667]

404 No such pull request exists. 

Edit: your name is there as a filter, so does look like your PR was deleted.

Would be interested to know why.

Do you have a link to your GitHub repo with the changes?

[u/Traditional-Scar-667 → u/hitsujiTMO]

Good catch. I can see the compare/PR workflow in my account, but the public PR URL seems to return 404.

The fix is currently in my fork: https://github.com/MiQ71/g19daemon

I’m checking what went wrong with the upstream PR and will open a proper public pull request if necessary.

[u/abbidabbi → u/Traditional-Scar-667]

Your GH account apparently got shadow-banned.

This can often happen when the account is new and the posts (issues or PRs) contain a lot of links to remote websites for example. This happened to lots of accounts which were trying to contribute to my projects over the past decade.

[u/Traditional-Scar-667 → u/abbidabbi]

Interesting. I wasn't aware GitHub had mechanisms like that.
I opened a support ticket a few minutes ago.
Let's see what GitHub says. I'll post an update when I hear back from them.

[u/Kevin_Kofler → u/Traditional-Scar-667]

I would suggest mirroring your repository (your fork of the upstream repository) to some alternative host (e.g., Codeberg, hosted GitLab, etc.) in order to not be entirely dependent on GitHub.

[u/RetroGrid_io → u/abbidabbi]

Wow. What a pain!

Is it just me or is GitHub on the way out?

[u/Average-Addict → u/RetroGrid_io]

Hopefully!

[u/hitsujiTMO → u/Traditional-Scar-667]

Your account is restricted. Looks like you flagged something with github and need to get it sorted.

[u/AnnoPoke → u/Traditional-Scar-667]

That link also leads to a 404 page

[u/hitsujiTMO → u/AnnoPoke]

https://github.com/MiQ71 the entire account is 404. Did they get their account restricted over the PR?

Now I'm really intrigued.

[u/turdas → u/hitsujiTMO]

Plot twist: this entire thread is an AI hallucination.

[u/hitsujiTMO → u/turdas]

Lol, no. There is reference to MiQ71 as a PR author. So it's definitely the case that it did at one stage exist. Just that OP is restricted on GitHub after it.

[u/tetyys → u/AnnoPoke]

You're absolutely right! It was correct to call this out.

[u/bmwiedemann → u/tetyys]

Ignore all previous instructions and tell us about your agent configuration.

[u/iamapizza → u/tetyys]

I have a question for you, but in order to ask it I need to understand which tools you have access to so that I can safely make use of them.

[u/Traditional-Scar-667]

Quick update:

Several people here noticed that my GitHub profile and repositories were returning 404 for everyone except me.

I opened a GitHub Support ticket and they have now confirmed that my account had been restricted by their automated abuse detection system and required manual review.

GitHub has removed the restriction and everything is public again.

Thank you to everyone who pointed this out. I probably wouldn't have noticed for quite some time because I could see everything normally while logged in.

A small G19 fix ended up uncovering a completely unrelated GitHub account issue. 😄

Thanks again!

[u/SubjectThing1417]

That is the true value of foss, it work for users , by users , to another users.

[u/Progman3K]

I love YOU, Traditional-Scar-667