LinuxQuestions.org - How I enabled the side mouse buttons in Fedora Core 2 default Gnome install

How I enabled the side mouse buttons in Fedora Core 2 default Gnome install.

Below are all the steps I followed to enable my USB "Microsoft Trackball Optical" side buttons to allow me to go forward and back in Mozilla Firefox. I don't understand why I have to do most the steps I do, and since I'm also am very busy right now I probably won't be able to answer any questions. However, this setup worked for me, so on the outside chance it will help someone else I thought I'd post it. It's the basically the same instructions I posted for FC1, with just a couple minor updates.

************Summary Steps************
1. Download and install imwheelrc
2. Edit "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
3. Create ".imwheelrc"
4. Manually run and test imwheelrc
5. Run imwheelrc automatically at login

************Detailed Step 1************
1. Download imwheel-1.0.0pre10.tar.gz from http://imwheel.sourceforge.net/
2. tar xzvf imwheel-1.0.0pre10.tar.gz
3. cd imwheel-1.0.0pre10
4. ./configure
5. make
6. make install
-Note that you must be root before running step 6. Run "su -" to get root privileges.
-I used imwheel-1.0.0pre10 because it was the latest version available at the time that I wrote this. The newer versions will probably work with these instructions, but I've never tested them.

************Detailed Step 2************
In the mouse section in "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" I had to replace:
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
with
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"

Note that my trackball is plugged into a USB port. I don't know if this matters.

I also had to replace:
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
with
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"

The last edit I made was to add this line:
Option "Buttons" "7"

So my complete "Mouse0" section now looks like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Now restart your Xserver (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE or a simple reboot)

************Detailed Step 3************
Create a file in your home directory called ".imwheelrc" with this text in it:
".*"
None, Left, Alt_L|Left
None, Right, Alt_L|Right

************Detailed Step 4************
Run these two commands:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
imwheel -k -b 0067

You should now be able to use your forward and back buttons in Firefox (and Mozilla). If they work continue on to step 5. Otherwise see below for a resolution to one possible problem.

If you receive a long error message like this:
INFO: current pid 8872 is imwheel.
WARNING: imwheel pid file could not be removed.
Perhaps you want the -p option.
Or chown root and chmod u+s the imwheel executable...
: Operation not permitted
ERROR: Couldn't write pid to pid file
Perhaps you want the -p option to avoid this...
Otherwise you may SUID root the imwheel executable.
: Permission denied

then you need to run (as root):
chown YOURUSERNAME /tmp/imwheel.pid

For example, if you username is bob you would run
chown bob /tmp/imwheel.pid

Now try running "imwheel -k -b 0067" again. If the side buttons still don't work in Mozilla you'll have to keep on searching for help, the rest of this post won't be of any use to you.

************Detailed Step 5************
Now that you've gotten the side buttons to work the only thing left to do is to get it to run automatically at login.

Create a file called "imwheelstart.sh" in your home directory with these commands in it:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
imwheel -k -b 0067

Make the file executable
chmod u+x imwheelstart.sh

You should now be able to run this file from your home directory by running "./imwheelstart.sh".

Add the file to Gnome "Startup Programs" list by:
-Run "gnome-session-properties" from a command prompt
-Note that in Fedora Core 1 this was available at FedoraStartMenu->Preferences->More Preferences->Sessions, but for some reason it doesn't show up on the Core 2 menu.
-Chose the "Startup Programs" tab
-Click the "+Add" button
-Browse to the file we made above "imwheelstart.sh"
-Click "OK", "OK", "Close" to save and exit out of the Sessions program

Your side buttons should work now automatically whenever you login.

************The End************
Although I haven't experimented with it yet, you can enable the side buttons to do different actions for each program you run. The file "/etc/X11/imwheel/imwheelrc" has lots of examples on how to do this. If you wanted to use all the settings in this file simply overwrite your home ".imwheelrc" file with this one.