Is it possible to use the "scroll wheel" on your mouse in linux? its driving me nuts not been able to scroll down the page

have a M$ IntelliMouse PS2

It works for me here. Do you mean clicking the scroll wheel and moving your mouse up and down? I haven't figured out how to do that either.

nope, I just mean moving the wheel to scroll

in /etc/X11/XF86Config...Oh, in Mandrake it might be /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

look for "Core pointer's input device Section"
or something similar. add:
You've probably got a line that says Option "Protocol" "Auto"
right now. Change it to:
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
and add:
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
That should get your scroll wheel working.

You could also add
option "Emulate3Buttons"

to make your wheel act as the third button of your mouse, ie, if there are only two besides it.

I did excatly what timedsmith said. But it didn't work for me. In that file there is nothing like "Core pointer's input device Section". But there is options for mouse. It says Option "Protocol" "PS/2". I changed that to Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" and at the end of it I also added the Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" part. But it still dosent work. I'm using mdk9.2 .

This is what my XF86Config-4 looks like. Look for the 2 changes marked with @@@@ sign.


# File generated by XFdrake.

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the XF86Config man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Mandrake 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
FontPath "unix/:-1"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
#DontZoom # disable <Crtl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
#DontZap # disable <Crtl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse doesn't work
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
Load "dri" # direct rendering
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "Keyboard"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "en_US"
Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2" @@@@CHANGED THIS TO - Option "Protocol"IMPS/2"@@@@
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
@@@@ADDED New Option@@@@
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "Plug'n Play"
HorizSync 30-70
VertRefresh 50-160

# Sony Vaio C1(X,XS,VE,VN)?
# 1024x480 @ 85.6 Hz, 48 kHz hsync
ModeLine "1024x480" 65.00 1024 1032 1176 1344 480 488 494 563 -hsync -vsync

# TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
# 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630

# 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "ATI"
BoardName "ATI Radeon"
Driver "radeon"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 16

Subsection "Display"

Depth 8
Virtual 1024 768
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 15
Virtual 1024 768
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Virtual 1024 768
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 1024 768
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
Screen "screen1"
EndSection

Ditch the emulate three buttons business. This if for two button mice in Gnome - pressing both buttons at once is "emulated" as being a third button. Since your mouse has three buttons, there is no need to emulate a third button. Remove that option from the XFree86 config and see if the scroll wheel works.

k I'll try that.

Waaawoo kc8tbe..... thankssss it works now... also to timedsmith...
my biggest surprice is that unlike windows I dont have to restart the computer to changes to take effect.... It worked immideatly after saving the file...

glad you got it working!

very few things in Linux require that you reboot to get them to work.
It's quite nice after having to reboot in WinBloze after every tiny little change.

> It's quite nice after having to reboot in WinBloze after every tiny little change.

Amen to that, timdsmith.

A word of warning: updating X, recompiling your kernel, or updating your init system may cause the location of your mouse device to change from /dev/psaux to somewhere else. If you do one of these three things and your mouse stops working, don't panic ! Find the new location of the mouse device and either update all your configs or simlink the new location to the old location.