Linux Gaming

Yes, all normal controllers should work out of the box on a modern kernel.

That includes official Playstation, Xbox and Switch controllers.

I went with Fedora for my gaming desktop and I think the only controllers supported out of the box were direct input controllers. Personally I have a Xbox series x controller and wireless dongle. By default the dongle is used as a wifi adapter which kind of took me by surprise.

To get the controller working, I had to install the Xone kernal module from git. After that everything worked fine. Steam, Lutris and yuzu. Once you get a controller working on the system it pretty much works for any app that uses controller input.

Distributions can have a big impact on the effort and knowledge you need to get things working. For example Nobara flat out asks if you want to install xbox controller support.

As long as the game controller shows up in Linux, it will work in Lutris as long as the game supports controllers.

My 8bitdo pro 2 controller works out of the box in lutris. Plug and play.

In fact the only controller that wasnt plug and play was my gamecube controller with the official adapter. I typed in like one command iirc and then it was plug and play lol

Wished windows was like that.

Games from Steam will work with just about any controller, non-steam games can usually be made to work by launching them from within Steam, so add the games to Steam when installing through Heroic or Lutris eg.

One possible issue is that mixing rpm & flatpak runtimes can cause issue's with Steam Input, atleast it did for me on Fedora 38 where Heroic installed as a flatpak couldn't interact with Steam Input where Steam was installed from rpm.

Everyone else covered the main details, I'll just add if you want to use an Xbox series X controller I found the Microsoft wireless dongle works best for wireless usage.

You would need to install the third-party xone kernel module though.

Xbox and Playstation controllers work out of the box for me usually on steam and Heroic. Sometimes games try really hard to not recognize it but can usually made work.