Hi, I'm presently running Mint 17.3 and having problems with Mint recognizing the mouse right side buttons. This morning I installed a Zowie ZA13 gaming mouse. I used xinput then xev from the terminal to see if the side buttons are recognized and they are NOT. I had a Razer Copperhead mouse installed previously with the exact same problem. I'm left handed and really need to use these side buttons for back and forward functions. Is this a known Linux problem or is there some way to instruct Mint to see these buttons?

Thanks so much.

I think that's what's call a "seven button mouse" (a standard mouse with scroll wheel is called a "five button mouse," with the wheel accounting for three of them: scroll forward, scroll backward, and click).

This article on the Arch wiki, always an excellent reference, should be a good starting point:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...uttons_Working

Hi Frank, Thanks for the reply. In this case I believe my mouse is a 9 button mouse then. It has the standard 3 buttons on top, left click, right click, and the scroll wheel and 2 side buttons on EACH side totalling 9. I should have been more specific. I need the right side buttons to be used as back page and forward page. Not a scroll function. Alt-left arrow, alt, right arrow. Back and forward. My specific problem is Linux does NOT see these buttons. Is there a generic (or specific) mouse driver I could use that would allow Linux to see these buttons?
Thanks

I have never had to deal with that issue.

A search for "linux 9 button mouse" may turn up something. I just tried it, but I didn't feel competent to pick a specific link to recommend.

Thanks Frank. It works with Windows and I'll be damned if I will go back. There has to be a way.

Not sure this will help, but if you
then run evtest, it will give you the scancodes, which are identifiers of the kernel events caused by pressing the buttons. If they register there, probably responding with something like
you will know the buttons are identified, but that the present kernel driver doesn't recognize them.

I don't know how to translate scancodes into keycodes (or button codes), but this might help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/search.html?...29982892832976 %3Ae2vwumte3fq&ie=UTF-8&q=keycodes+and+scancodes&sa=Search

I tried what you suggested and the 2 right side buttons are NOT recognized. Bummer, I guess I'm SOL to find a mouse to do what I need? I have a couple spare PC's I can install other Linux systems on and try the mouse on them to see if it's a kernel problem. If I find one that supports the side buttons, I will get back and post it.

Thanks all for your help.