Getting MX510 buttons to work correctly
 

Hey!

I have search around in this forum and read up on the mousebutton issues (making the buttons work correctly, ie in browsers with the back and forth buttons etc), but can't for the love of God make my sidebuttons on the MX510 mouse to work as back and forward buttons in Opera (Or any other browser for that mather).

To update on what i have done:

I have added support for 7buttons mouse in my xorg.conf (i use Ubuntu).
I ran this: xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5" - and i also switched around on it. But here is a funny part: If i switch 6 and 7 to take the place of 4 and 5, i will be able to go back and forward with my scroll. But when they are in the position they are now, it won't work with the two buttons on the left side of the MX510.

That makes me conclude that i don't really have support for all my buttons, do anyone have any input on what I can do? It's frustrating not being able to use my mouse to the fullest :-)

thanks!

Try running xev and clicking in the window with the extra mouse buttons to see if the button clicks are indeed detected by X. Careful, moving the mouse produces LOTS of output. (Run xev from a terminal to see all the details)

They are detected indeed. So then I guess it's all about giving them the right assignements, but why don't they recieve the same tasks as ie the mousescroll does, when they are assigned to the same thing?

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

This makes everything work ok, exept that the side-buttons do not respond to anything

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7"

This makes the scroll work as back and forward, the way i want the sidebuttons to do..

Hi!

Can you post here what you put in xorg.conf? I had to try some things there before I could make things work... (see thread)

Laura

Let's begin at the beginning.

You can use 7 buttons (Left,Middle,Right,Scroll Up,Scroll Down,Forward,Backward) if you use the "Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer"
protocol.

Your xorg.conf should look like the following:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "My Logitech Mouse Anything in here doesn't make any difference"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection

This says that you have a mouse that uses the "explorer" protocol and has "7" buttons and scrolling is seen as buttons "6 7"
X normally waits buttons "4 5" for scrolling and "6 7" for forward/backward, so you map the pointer with xmodmap like you did.

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

if you run "xmodmap -pp" you get:

There are 7 pointer buttons defined.

Physical Button
Button Code
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 6
5 7
6 4
7 5

So everything should work correctly.

If you want to have all 10 buttons of the MX510 working you need to use the "Event interface (evdev)".

I don't know what distribution you use and which X server you have, so i can't say many details.

If i am correct, debian and gentoo use a patched version of xorg which supports evdev (not very good implemented patch)
so you just change your xorg.conf.

New versions of Xorg X Server have a new and much better implementation.
If you want to use the new version of evdev you can compile it as a module.

http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/...p?articleid=46

has a very good guide.

if you want the side buttons to work as back and forward, change the following line:

Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"

to this:

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

the wheel will then take over the scrolling up and down. hope i helped

Thanks... but...
 

imitheos: Thanks a stack! your bit helped me solve my problem like this!

Just one problem now though. Everytime I restart my system I need to run the command you gave... xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

Is there a way that I can have this setting stay? maybe edit a config file or something?

Thanks again!

The following is very concise and works perfectly. It's from a post over on fedoraforum.org.


As root, add this to your InputDevice section in xorg.conf in folder /etc/X11/, I back up using comments, you can also copy the file first with something like cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.org:
Note here that I have commented out Identifier "USB Mouse" and replaced it with my original Identifier "Mouse0". You must do the same.

Next create the file mouse.sh in folder /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/ and paste the following in it:
Finally make it executable with Restart X. I rebooted. ;) Good luck!

xinitrc.d doesn't work for all distributions.

You can create a file .Xmodmap in your directory or /etc/X11/xinit/Xmodmap for all users
and put "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5" in it.

Changing xorg.conf to this worked for me in SuSE 10.1:

Thanks to Skuri from forums.suselinuxsupport.de

Feedback
 

Hi Guys

I got this working with the help provided above and I have saved a copy of what I did in my howto's folder on my pc.

I was thinking about this problem a bit though. Would it not be nice if SuSE/Novell added these mice in to the supported lists? It does not seem like much work. From what I can tell it's just a few extra config's that need to be stored so that users can choose them from the control center.

Any idea where to suggest this and who to?

R

You're 1 day late. The Beta 1 version of the next SuSE has been released, thereby preventing any significant changes (see here "Feature and version freeze for the complete distribution, all features are coding and function complete". The next version will be released on the 7'th of December, but I strongly suggest everyone tries the Beta in order to iron out all kinks and bugs, for the good of the community.

I couldn't find a way to reach the developers directly, however OpenSuSE has a page about how you can Participate, from there select Suggest new features, then Feature wishlist and Hardware support.

I guess I should have thought of this as well, I will be more participative in the future :o

This works in openSuSE 10.2 as well.

I have since switched to Ubuntu...
 

I have since switched to Ubuntu for my desktop OS. This fix works there too. I will try this on my servers too. This thread is on my "first things to do to linux installations" list.

Thanks Randal...

R

Hi to all! :)

I have Mandriva 2007, and Logitech MX510 optical mouse. Anyone know, if the suggestions listed above will work in my distro? I'll give them a try at weekend, as soon as I'll be back home for Christmas ;)