ckb is a userspace (i.e. non-kernel) driver for Corsair RGB keyboards for Linux and OSX. It contains a daemon program, which runs in the background and must be started as root, as well as a user interface which may be run as any user.

qt5-base, libudev, gcc, g++, and glibc are required. Check with your package manager to make sure you have the correct libraries/headers installed (Note: on Ubuntu you need qt5-default and libudev-dev). You also need a kernel with uinput support (all distros should ship with this by default; don't worry about it unless you're running a custom kernel).

You can build the project by running qmake && make in the directory you downloaded it to. The binaries will be placed in a new bin directory assuming they compile successfully. To start the daemon, run sudo bin/ckb-daemon. After that, open the ckb binary as a normal user to start the user interface.

Install Qt5 from here: http://www.qt.io/download-open-source/ (you'll also be propmted to install Xcode from the app store if you don't have it already)

Open ckb.pro in Qt Creator. You should be prompted to configure the project (the default settings should work fine). Right-click on "ckb [master]" on the left-hand pane and select "Run qmake" from the drop-down menu. Now press Cmd+B to build the project. The binaries should be placed in a newly-created bin directory assuming they compile successfully. Exit Qt Creator.

Note: The project is intended to compile on OSX Yosemite. If you're running an earlier version, find the QMAKE_MAC_SDK lines in ckb.pro, src/ckb-daemon/ckb-daemon.pro, and src/ckb/ckb.pro. Edit them from macosx10.10 to your OSX version, e.g. macosx10.9 for Mountain Lion.

ckb-daemon needs to be run as root. Open the bin directory in a Terminal window and run sudo ./ckb-daemon. Then open ckb.app as a normal application to start the user interface.

Mac notes:

• The keyboard devices are located at /tmp/ckb* and not /dev/input/ckb*. So wherever you see /dev/input/ckb in this document, replace it with /tmp/ckb.
• If you've rebound your modifier keys in System Preferences, those changes won't work anymore. You have to switch them using ckb's bind command. For instance, to switch Cmd and Ctrl, run: echo bind lctrl:lwin lwin:lctrl rctrl:rwin rwin:rctrl > /tmp/ckb1/cmd

See DAEMON.md for info about the daemon program.

The user interface is currently very limited and only supports a handful of options. They should be self-explanatory.

Coming soon:

• More animations
• Reactive lighting for keypresses
• Key rebinding
• Key macros
• Loading and saving hardware profiles

Closing ckb will actually minimize it to the system tray. Use the Exit option from the menu to quit the application.

• The system tray icon doesn't always appear in Linux. Apparently this is a known Qt bug.
• (Daemon) When loading settings from the hardware, all three modes end up with the same RGB configuration. This is a hardware bug and it affects CUE as well.
• It's not possible for the daemon to determine which hardware mode was in use, so the keyboard always starts on mode 1. Again, this is a hardware issue (although thanks to the above problem, it doesn't really matter anyway).
• The Linux driver doesn't work 100% consistently and can be very slow to start up or shut down. This seems to be a driver/firmware conflict at an OS level, so it probably can't be fixed in ckb.