Hello,

I just stumbled upon the next Logitech MX Ergo trackball mouse.

Unsurprisingly, the official website doesn't say anything about the trackball's Linux compatibility. Can anyone confirm if this mouse work well with Linux? Do all of the buttons work? Thank you.

I don't know whether all of the buttons will do what you want out-of-box, but it uses Logitech's Unifying Receiver which works in Linux out-of-box. At that point, you can use "xinput" to reassign any buttons if necessary for the desired functionality.

That's assuming you have a spare USB port or an already plugged in Unifying Receiver on some USB port (it has the ability to pair with many mice and keyboards so they all work using the same Unifying Receiver at once).

If you want to connect up with bluetooth, it might be a bit more complex. I haven't had any issues with compatibility, but the procedure for establishing a persistent bluetooth pairing in Linux is odd and it has changed.

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Thank you IsaacKuo!

Sounds like - with the Unifying Receiver - basic functionality (e.g. left/right clicks, scrolling with scollwheel, etc.) will work, but the other buttons may or may not. I will keep this in mind!

Thank you IsaacKuo!

Sounds like - with the Unifying Receiver - basic functionality (e.g. left/right clicks, scrolling with scollwheel, etc.) will work, but the other buttons may or may not. I will keep this in mind!

The other buttons will work in the sense that button down/up signals are received and the click events passed onto whatever application window is active. But most applications won't do anything with those click events by default.

You can use xinput to customize what they do (such as scroll up/down/left/right or send a keypress or zoom in/out or rotate or something).

I have been using the MX Ergo at work for the last two weeks on my Ubuntu 16.04 LTS machine and I have to say it really is great! I had no problem getting the device recognized by the system. The only thing I changed was the sensitivity of the mouse pointer. Since I'm using i3 as my window manager I made the necessary adjustments through xinput.

Two minor things that I'm still struggling a bit with is that the horizontal scrolling by tilting the wheel isn't working, and the vertical scrolling distance is not large enough. If anyone has any suggestions for how to adjust this I would be very happy

If you have any other questions about the MX Ergo and how it behaves - just ask!

Take a look at this page:

https://superuser.com/questions/3088...lling-on-linux

This tells how to do the opposite with xinput. I'll adapt the instructions for doing what you want to do. I once had a mouse where mouse tilt actually did "forward/back" on web browsing, which was ANNOYING. I replaced it with left/right scroll, which is what I thought I wanted...until I realized that was also more annoying than actually useful. I ended up deactivating left/right mousewheel tilt.

I don't remember the precise things I did, but roughly:

0) List xinput devices with "xinput"

1) Find out what numbers correspond to tilt left/tilt right with "xinput test <device>"

2) Map those to "6" and "7" with:

This example maps 10->6 and 11->7

As for increasing vertical scrolling distance, I'm not sure.

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Thanks for your answer!

When I run xinput test i get this output:

where # is an integer which either increases (right tilt) or decreases (left tilt) one value at a time.

How do I use this information?

You don't also get button presses with each tilt?

No, unfortunately not. The system seems to see it like an additional trackball. If I use the real trackball i get similar output like this:

I've had no issues with my MX Ergo in Linux with two minor exceptions.. First is the 1/2 button and the precision button do not generate events; they are internal to the device. Not a problem, just is what it is. Second there appear to be no battery indications on the device so without the Windows software to alert you, you might not realize your battery is almost dead. However, it might be generating an event in dmesg so that might be something that could be used. I plan on looking into that more. But as for tilt and up/down, those can all be readily mapped as F buttons using xbindkeys.

Once that is done, your buttons should now generate F14-F17. Adjust this if you already do this with other things. You should then be able to map actions using your desktop environment to those buttons. I personally map them to two scripts. I have 3 monitors so I've made a script to make the mouse 'skip' between the three using tilt so I can quickly move between monitors. The other script rotates through my Chrome windows as I often have 3-4 open when I'm working.

If anyone is interested in those specific scripts I could post them, but they are fairly specific to my needs. However, what I am doing is using two packages, xautomation and xdotool, to do all the work. For example in the script to move the mouse around I use xdotool to get my mouse location and to then change its location. In the script to flip through my Chrome windows, I use xdotool to find the Chrome window, then xdotool also activates and focuses on it. To adjust my mouse speed the way I want, I use xinput

I hope this helps someone!

I was wondering if there has been any updates with this trackball, if any newer version os linux have "dropped support", as I found with my M570, it worked in a few older versions of Kubuntu then after an upgrade it didn't work (I believe it worked on 14.04LTS then 14.10, 15.10 did work.

I'm planning on trying 18.04 though I wasn't thrilled with 16.04 and loved 14.04, but that is getting close to the EOL of support. Still got about 3.5 years on one install with SUPER heavy use and never had to re-install!
Any comments on the trackball now after it's been out for some time?

How would Linux "drop support" of a USB HID device? That doesn't make any sense. It just works, out of the box, USB or Bluetooth.

Well when you find a mouse (wireless that uses "proprietary" connectivity) and it doesn't work with any linux system, think back to this thread. This was a common issue years ago and there were many wireless keyboards and mice that didn't work. The new mouse uses a combination of 2.4Ghz RF and Bluetooth, and that isn't going to work the same as a standard RF mouse or a bluetooth mouse on it's own. HENCE, some OS's support these.

I've had one version of Ubuntu work with a mouse and then a few releases later it wouldn't and I had to install special repositories/packages to make it work.

That is what I mean by "dropping" support.

Thanks!

That is not the case.. It is USB hid, works with anything.