02 April, 2015

Logitech Unify on Linux

I recently had to replace all my peripherals for my primary desktop / workstation, and as always; the choice fell on Logitech. I ended up getting so-called "Unify" wireless devices (mouse / keyboard).

Upon reading about using Unify-devices on Linux, I realized some smart fellow had made a simple management-suite for Linux-systems, called Solaar.

Solaar allows pairing of multiple Unify-devices to one "Unifying Receiver" (the USB-receiver dongle), through either a simple GUI tray-application (GTK-interface) or a simple command-line tool. It also offers monitoring on battery-levels (with notifications) and checks if wireless links are using encryption or not. Much like the applications used on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Solaar, running as an Ubuntu desktop-tray widget.

Installing was as simple as running the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:daniel.pavel/solaar && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install solaar;
Solaar on the web: http://pwr.github.io/Solaar/