I know, I've read lots of posts on how to get this working, but I have a simple question, before I start to dabble...

I've installed SUSE 8.2 out of the box. My original Intellimouse Explorer is connected via the ps/2 port (didn't want to complicate it by going usb!).
The wheel is fine, it scrolls happily, and the regular left and right mouse buttons are fine. Even clicking the wheel does something (the same as the left mouse button infact), but that's not what I'm interested in.

All I want to do is to get the 2 side buttons to work! I either want them to go back and forward in the browser, or assign them to some other keyboard mapping, so I can make use of them!

My question is, do I need to install this imwheel thing or not? Is imwheel just to assist in scrolling? As I said the wheel is scrolling fine, but that's not what I want to use the side buttons for!

Any ideas?

That doesn't help much. As I said, my wheel works fine, so do I need this imwheel thing to get the side buttons working or not?

maybe you should see if there are any driver updates for your mouse

Well I took a chance and installed this imwheel thing, even though I wasn't sure if I needed it or not.

The good news is that the side buttons now have functionality, although they're not doing exactly what I wanted them to do.

The wheel still scrolls up and down quite happily a couple of lines at a time, so that's cool.

The side buttons seem to be performing a page-up, page-down function in the browser, not back and forward between web pages, which is what I was really after.

Any ideas?

Did you read the 71 post thread with title 'Microsfot Intellimouse - Side Buttons?'

If not go back and read it.

This sounds like a software issue now. Read the documentation for your Desktop Environment (GNOME, KDE, IceWM, etc.) and it should tell you how to assign custom commands to mouse button, keyboard keys, your refridgerator etc.