HOWTO: thumb buttons

[zeker]

It took me all afternoon to get this to work, so I am posting here in the hopes of saving other people the time

To make a Microsoft habu gaming mouse work in KDE:

Step 1 - have KDE see the buttons

Change xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) to look like this for the mouse:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"Protocol"		"ExplorerPS/2"
	Option		"Buttons"		"7"
	Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"6 7"
	Option		"Emulate3Buttons" 	"false"
EndSection

note the protocol in particular, and also take out any reference to button mapping.

Step 2 - modmap the mouse buttons

create a modmap file (/etc/X11/Xsession.d/57Xmodmap) that looks like this:

#/bin/bash
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
imwheel -k -b "0 0 6 7"

Step 3 - Start the imwheel program

In my KDE autoexec folder (~/.kde/Autostart) there is a shell script (imwheel.sh*) that lloks like this:

#/bin/bash
imwheel -k

Then in my home directory there is a config file for the imwheel program (~/.imwheelrc) that looks like this:

".*"
None,Thumb1,Alt_L|Left
None,Thumb2,Alt_L|Right

This allows the two thumb buttons to work as forward and back in all programs.

[-::Bas::-]

To make a Microsoft habu gaming mouse work in Gnome:

Step 1 - have Gnome see the buttons

Change xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) to look like this for the mouse:

First

 sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then add:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"Protocol"		"ExplorerPS/2"
	Option		"Buttons"		"7"
	Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"6 7"
	Option		"Emulate3Buttons" 	"false"
EndSection

note the protocol in particular, and also take out any reference to button mapping.

Step 2 - modmap the mouse buttons

create a modmap file

sudo gedit /etc/X11/Xsession.d/57Xmodmap

and add this to the blank stuff you've just created:

#/bin/bash
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
imwheel -k -b "0 0 6 7"

Step 3 - Install the imwheel program:

sudo apt-get install imwheel

Step 4 - Autostart the imwheel program:

Go to System -> Administration -> Sessions
Click on "add", and add the imwheel program which is located in /usr/bin/imwheel

Step 5 - Let the two thumb buttons work as forward and back in all programs:

Open /etc/X11/imwheel/.imwheelrc

sudo gedit /etc/X11/imwheel/imwheelrc

Add this to the file and save it:

".*"
None,Thumb1,Alt_L|Left
None,Thumb2,Alt_L|Right

Now ctrl-alt-bckspc, log into your machine and you're good to go!


Thanks to Zeker who wrote most of this for KDE, I only adapted it for Gnome-users.

[zeker]

Hey! Glad to be of help.

[reverend_HH]

Ok so I'm about fed up here, I've been messing with the settings for the longest and I've gone from having my mouse wheel scroll up/down, used as the forward/back buttons, and not working at all. I've changed the settings in 57xmodmap and that doesn't seem to have an effect on the side buttons. My system always reads my back side button as mouse3 (middle click) and my forward button as mouse2 (right click). I had it working before so I know for a fact that it's possible but I had to reconfigure my xorg to default settings because it wouldn't read my graphics card. In case it matters, I'm using an MX600 (it comes with the MX3200 desktop and I've tried changing the number of buttons from 7 to 9 to 10. Please help!

[SilentChris]

Thanks a ton Zeker and -::Bas::- !

I tried other solutions for like an hour before I came to this one. It worked perfectly. Now I can finally navigate firefox with my side buttons =D

[dover19]

Wow, not only did this not work but it screwed up my Ubuntu. Some Error message about not loading GNOME properly.

[twizler]

[B]panickedthumb THANK YOU ! YOU THE MAN!! I have a usb 5 button Microsoft intelli mouse that is now working w/ scroll back / forward buttons!!!! WOOT WHOOT

some of step items were a little off on my system but you got me 95 % of the way there and the rest was intuitive to figure out
my imwheelrc file was located @

/etc/X11/imwheel/imwheelrc
and xmodmap
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/80ubuntu-xmodmap[B]