I can’t get Arch to recognize it as an Xbox controller (so it doesn’t rumble or have any haptic feedback).

I’ve never needed to to anything to make a gamepad with rumble motors work on Linux, as long as it actually has the motors.

I’m not sure what you mean when you say that “Arch” isn’t recognizing it as an Xbox controller or why that would prevent vibration. I assume that some software package that should vibrate isn’t? Some Steam game?

fftest should make it vibrate using the old-style /dev/input/jsX interface. Dunno about the newer /dev/input/eventX interface, which is what you’re probably using. Maybe evtest can do that.

kagis

Okay, evtest can apparently dump a flag indicating whether rumble is supported. fftest apparently supports the /dev/input/eventX interface too.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1139960/how-to-enable-a-vibration-in-a-pc-gamepad-in-xubuntu-18-10

A gamepad supports vibration if it supports the FF_RUMBLE event, which you can check with the evtest tool. Here’s the output for my Xbox One controller, which does support vibration.

To test rumble, use fftest. You’ll need to provide the path to the evdev node for the gamepad, which is included in the output from evtest. For my Xbox controller this was /dev/input/event16:

If you haven’t done that, I’d try that, as it cuts a bunch of variables out of the equation. If it works, then the issue is probably with the game you’re trying to play with, and if not, then the issue is probably going to be on the kernel side.