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Solaar/RHEL.md

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Solaar on RHEL 10

Purpose

This documents the steps required to get Solaar running on RHEL 10 when the package is not available from the normal repositories.

Environment

  • OS: RHEL 10
  • Desktop: KDE Plasma on Wayland
  • Device class: Logitech Unifying Receiver
  • Example mouse: Logitech M720 Triathlon

Observed issue

The following packages were not available from the configured repositories:

sudo dnf install solaar xbindkeys xdotool evtest

DNF returned package-not-found errors for those package names.

What worked

1. Confirm the Logitech receiver is detected

lsusb | grep -i logitech

Expected output looked similar to this:

Bus 001 Device 00X: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver

2. Install required base packages from RHEL and EPEL where available

Install Python packaging support and device/input tooling first.

sudo dnf install python3 python3-pip git libinput evemu

Also install build and runtime pieces commonly needed for user-space input and HID tools.

sudo dnf install python3-devel gcc pkgconf-pkg-config gtk3 python3-gobject

Note: exact dependency resolution may vary depending on enabled repositories and what is already installed.

3. Clone the Solaar repository

mkdir -p ~/dev-repos
cd ~/dev-repos
git clone https://github.com/pwr-Solaar/Solaar.git
cd Solaar

4. Install Solaar to the user environment

Install it into the user site-packages instead of system-wide.

python3 -m pip install --user .

If upgrading later from the fork or local checkout:

python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade .

5. Run Solaar directly from the user-local install path

~/.local/bin/solaar

For CLI inspection:

~/.local/bin/solaar show
~/.local/bin/solaar config "M720 Triathlon Multi-Device Mouse"

6. Confirm the receiver and device are visible

A working example:

~/.local/bin/solaar show

This displayed the Unifying Receiver and the M720 Triathlon, including battery state and configurable features.

Automated installer script

A guided installer script is included in this repository and automates the RHEL workflow in this document while prompting before each major action.

Run it from the Solaar checkout:

./tools/install-rhel.sh

The script can:

  • check for Logitech receiver visibility with lsusb
  • install required packages with dnf
  • create the checkout directory and clone/update Solaar
  • install Solaar with python3 -m pip install --user
  • optionally add a Bash alias for solaar
  • optionally run solaar show, solaar config, libinput debug-events, and keyd monitor
  • write a timestamped evidence log in ~/.local/state/solaar/

Wayland note

On KDE Wayland, Solaar prints a warning similar to:

rules cannot access modifier keys in Wayland, accessing process only works on GNOME with Solaar Gnome extension installed

This does not prevent basic Solaar usage. It only means some rule-processing features are limited under Wayland, especially outside GNOME.

Device-specific issue seen with the M720

solaar show triggered a traceback when trying to read host-name metadata from the M720 Triathlon:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode bytes in position 12-13: unexpected end of data

This appears related to Solaar parsing stored host information from the mouse, not to receiver detection itself.

Practical workaround

Use targeted commands that still work, such as:

~/.local/bin/solaar config "M720 Triathlon Multi-Device Mouse"

This successfully showed configurable settings like:

  • scroll wheel direction
  • scroll wheel resolution
  • pointer speed
  • reprogrammable keys
  • persistent remappable keys
  • diversion settings

Verifying input behavior outside Solaar

To inspect raw input events from the mouse, identify the correct /dev/input/eventX node for the mouse on your system and then run:

sudo libinput debug-events --device /dev/input/eventX

This confirmed the mouse was producing:

  • pointer motion
  • left and middle button events
  • scroll wheel events
  • horizontal wheel events
  • keyboard-style events for some remapped functions

keyd note

A locally installed keyd binary may exist under /usr/local/bin/keyd if built from source or installed manually.

If it is not available in the shell PATH, direct invocation may be required for monitoring:

sudo /usr/local/bin/keyd monitor

This can help verify that virtual keyboard and pointer events are being created and that remapped device actions are flowing through the input stack.

Recommended quality-of-life alias

Add a shell alias so Solaar can be launched normally:

vi ~/.bashrc

Append:

alias solaar="$HOME/.local/bin/solaar"

Reload shell config:

source ~/.bashrc

Then launch with:

solaar

Summary

The working path on RHEL 10 was:

  1. Confirm the Logitech Unifying Receiver is visible with lsusb.
  2. Install Python and required development/runtime packages.
  3. Clone the Solaar repository.
  4. Install Solaar with python3 -m pip install --user ..
  5. Run Solaar from ~/.local/bin/solaar.
  6. Use solaar config "M720 Triathlon Multi-Device Mouse" for stable device configuration.
  7. Use libinput debug-events and optionally keyd monitor to validate the input stack.

Commands used

lsusb | grep -i logitech
mkdir -p ~/dev-repos
cd ~/dev-repos
git clone https://github.com/pwr-Solaar/Solaar.git
cd Solaar
python3 -m pip install --user .
~/.local/bin/solaar
~/.local/bin/solaar show
~/.local/bin/solaar config "M720 Triathlon Multi-Device Mouse"
sudo libinput debug-events --device /dev/input/eventX
sudo /usr/local/bin/keyd monitor

Caveats

  • Package availability in RHEL 10 repositories may differ from Fedora or Debian-based systems.
  • Wayland limits certain Solaar rule features.
  • solaar show may crash on some host-info metadata due to an upstream parsing issue.
  • Direct user-local execution from ~/.local/bin/solaar may be required if no system package exists.
  • Replace example paths and event device numbers with the values on your own system.