Linux and USB Joysticks
The unit is call "KiKY X-series" and comes in really generic packaging. Works great for $10 I paid for it. Once I knew the unit worked I decide to try it on Linux. I've never done anything with Linux and joysticks before so it was all new to me. I plug the unit into my RedHat 8.0 workstation and do a cat /proc/bus/usb/devices and I see the box has recognized the device.
Now to make it work. After digging around I found that you have to install the joystick driver which is done by issuing: insmod joydev. That's pretty much all there is to it. You'll probably want to test that the joystick works by using the jstest command. The first joystick should be /dev/input/js0. You should see all the axis for your controller as well as all the buttons and they should respond accordingly when you press them.
Pretty simple really. Now I just need to find a way to remap some of the axis as the analog sticks are being picked up before the gamepad and thus xmame won't let me configure them.