How to calibrate joystick?
 

I have an xbox controller (the original. it is awesome) hooked up to my computer. It works fine. I play Nintendo and Super Nintendo games with it. I play some native linux games too.

Whenever I set up a new game, I have to set the "dead zone" for my controller, or else my character will constantly move (or look, or turn) to the left. I also have to flip the vertical axes, or else up is down and down is up, which is fine for flight sims or FPS's, but not so good for side scrollers or overhead view games like zelda.

Sometimes, adjusting these values for a new game is easy. Sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes I have to modify obscure, undocumented settings in a config file. Sometimes it is impossible.

Is there a universal (all games in debian linux) way to adjust these settings? "jscal", and "jscalibrator" (a jscal gui) both appear to have no effect. "jscal -t /dev/input/js0" always displays the message "jscal: axes not calibrated", regardless of how many times I calibrate my x-pad.

I got my answer. The answer is "no, there is not a universal way to edit joystick settings." Every game has it's own way. Most of them hard code the axes and the threshold (dead zone). And the threshold is rarely high enough for my controller. As for the "down is up" thing, that is a bug in the xpad driver. I need to report that to the linux kernel devs.

jscal and jscalibrator do not have any noticeable effect because they are worthless. All they do is write a file into your home directory which doesn't do anything.