Oversteer is often regarded as an entertaining vehicle dynamics phenomenon that most so-called petrol-heads tend to love.

It's also the name of an interesting free and open-source Linux application that allows users to configure, customize, and tweak their gaming/sim racing steering wheels.

In short, Oversteer is a steering wheel manager for Linux.

Before anything else, it's important to note that Oversteer is a third-party application, meaning one should not expect the same level of quality and polish as the official apps of various gaming steering wheels (such as Logitech G923, Thrustmaster TS-XW Racer, or Hori Racing Wheel Apex).

That said, it's important to note that the app manages steering wheels on Linux by using a series of loaded modules. This means that the app does not come with full hardware support by default. Hence, you'll need a driver module in order to enable the hardware on Linux.

Still, in its current form, Oversteer comes with support for the following steering wheels (we're mostly talking about Logitech products). These wheels are supported by the default in-kernel module and include Wingman Formula GP and Force GP, Driving Force, Force Pro, Force GT, Momo Force and Racing Force, Speed Force Wirelerss, G25, G27, G29, G920 (PS3 mode), G923 for XBox (since Linux 6.3), and OpenFFBoard.

This is a good time to point out that OpenFFBoard is a free and open-source force feedback interface.

There are a couple of other wheels that could potentially work with this app but they require custom driver modules (for FFB support). These include Logitech G923 (PS/PC), Thrustmaster T150, TMX Force, T300 RS, T248, TS-XW Racer, and a few others from FANATEC.

Because the list is fairly extensive, I recommend that you check out the app's GitHub repository for more information.

If a steering wheel is both supported by the app and the driver, Oversteer is a decently capable app. With its help, you can change the rotation range, change the emulation modes, change the auto-centering force strength, change the force feedback gains and other settings, and add and manage configuration profiles.

Other features include hardware performance testing, an overlay window to display or configure range, as well as the option to combine accelerator and brake pedals for games that use a single axis.

As a sim racing enthusiast, I'll be the first one to admit that Oversteer is not the easiest app to use (even though the GUI is decent). That's not because the app itself is bad, but because steering wheels on Linux are still difficult to set up.

Still, Oversteer is a wonderful initiative, and with a bit of patience and work it can do wonders for most popular (low to medium-end) gaming steering wheels on the market.