In my quest to get my 6-button Logitech Mouseman Optical thumb button to act as a browser back button, I have noticed that no matter which Protocol I use in xorg.conf (ExplorerPS/2 IMPS/2 PS/2 Auto) xev does not respond at all when I push the thumb button. I'm thinking that's why no matter what I do, I cannot get the thumb button working like I want. For some reason my install of Slack11 with kernel 2.6.17.13 just isn't seeing the thumb button.

I dual-boot with Ubuntu 6.10 and it, along with imwheel, sees the thumb button just fine and it works as my browser back. I have, of course, exactly replicated Ubuntu's settings for the mouse in Slackware (except for the device setting of course), but nothing I try works.

Why would xev not show my thumb button at all?

Here are the settings that work in Ubuntu, but not Slackware (same computer):

/etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" #ubuntu
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" #slackware
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "8"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection


/etc/X11/imwheel/imwheelrc:

"(null)"
None, Up, Alt_L|Left
None, Down, Alt_L|Right

".*"
None, Up, Alt_L|Left
None, Down, Alt_L|Right


imwheel cmd:

imwheel -b 8

My suggestion would be to do:

and post the results. This will tell you what the kernel thinks your mouse is. Ideally, since you are observing different behavior between Slack and Ubuntu, do it in both and compare the outputs.

Dave

Here is the mouse part of what "cat /proc/bus/input/devices" gives me on both:
Eventhough it says ImPS/2 I do have them both set to ExplorerPS/2 in xorg.conf.

slack:
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0005 Version=0000
N: Name="ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input2
H: Handlers=mouse0 event2
B: EV=7
B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=103


ubuntu:
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0006 Version=0000
N: Name="ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input2
H: Handlers=mouse0 event2 ts0
B: EV=7
B: KEY=1f0000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=103

Even though you are telling X to use the Explorer protocol, the kernel doesn't see it as such a device which I have a feeling is the trouble.

Are you running the 2.6 kernel and modules? If so, the default Slackware behavior is to load the psmouse module with the option "proto=imps" which won't let the kernel see the full capabilities of some devices. Pat V. talks about his rationale for doing this in the file '/etc/rc.modules-2.6.<whatever>' where the psmouse module is modprobed.

This caused me some headaches with my touchpad and adding the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf fixed it:

This overrides the proto=imps option and allows the kernel to see the full capabilities of the device.

Dave

Yes, I have upgraded to 2.6.17.13.

Adding that options line did the trick. The button now works.

Thank you very much.