Scroll Lock Wheel Mouse in Linux Mint 19.3

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 04:17 AM

I have installed Linux Mint 19.x on two machines to dual boot with a Windows OS.

On both machines, I cannot figure out how to get my USB wheel mouse to behave as it does in the Windows OS when running Mint.

I want to be able to "scroll lock" by pressing the wheel and have this functionality in any application. I also want to be able to set the speed of scrolling when turning the wheel. (the default is very slow).

Thanks for any help.

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 04:30 AM

By default libinput is handling input devices now. It is not a given that all pointing devices will have the same features available or configuration options as a Windows environment might offer.

Install 'libinput-tools' (if not already installed) and then run

Code:

sudo libinput list-devices

Post the output here. That might help others to advise further.

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 01:17 PM

When I search for "libinput-tools" in Software Mgr. it says "no packages found".

When I paste the above command into Terminal it says "sudo: libinput: command not found".

How do I proceed?

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 01:22 PM

I'm not a Linux Mint user, but perhaps you don't have the pertinent repository configured yet. You can check that with

Code:

inxi -r

or examine /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and /etc/apt/sources.list directly.

Anyway, it's definitely available...
https://community.linuxmint.com/soft...libinput-tools

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 01:34 PM

Advice for adjusting mouse wheel speed in this Linux Mint thread is to use imwheel. See here for that...

http://www.webupd8.org/2015/12/how-t...eel-speed.html

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 03:08 PM

Code:

wolf@wolf-office:~$ inxi -r
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/danielrichter2007-grub-customizer-bionic.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/danielricht...tomizer/ubuntu bionic main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com tricia main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yannubuntu-boot-repair-bionic.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/yannubuntu/boot-repair/ubuntu bionic main

I am a newbie at Linux, so I don't know exactly what all that means, but it looks like the update I did to Mint V.19.3 a few days ago did not install the Libinput-Tools.

Played with ImWheel in the past... it does nothing for scroll lock.

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 03:23 PM

Ok... although the link you posted above did nothing for me on previous attempts, this time around it installed the libinput-tools. Here is the output I believe is pertinent.

Code:

wolf@wolf-office:~$ sudo libinput list-devices
[sudo] password for wolf:
Device:           Logitech USB Optical Mouse
Kernel:           /dev/input/event3
Group:            3
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     pointer 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: disabled
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   button
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Accel profiles:   flat *adaptive
Rotation:         n/a

I'll read up next on how to change these settings and which ones to change if any, but your continued input is also appreciated.

Thanks,
Wolf

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImWolf

Played with ImWheel in the past... it does nothing for scroll lock.

Are you sure? It mentions about editing ~/.imwheelrc

In particular, I note the following information...

Quote:

Code:

".*"
None,      Up,   Button4, 3
None,      Down, Button5, 3

"3" at the end of lines two and three represent the number of lines to scroll ("3" should be default) - modify this number to suit your needs. Once you're done, save the file.

The first (".*") line from the code used above represents is used to specify in which applications to use those settings. ".*" means everywhere, but you can also apply application-specific settings by changing ".*" to the window name (and add multiple application-dependent settings). Run "man imwheel" for more information.

And finally, the last 4 lines in the code above are there to allow Ctrl / Shift with mouse scroll wheel up / down to work (for instance, to allow zooming in on a webpage in the web browser, etc.), which is the default behaviour.

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 03:56 PM

Beyond using imwheel, I'm not sure that any other desktop-wide solution exists. I know applications such as firefox can be tweaked individually, but I imagine this is not what you're looking for.

This Linux Mint thread also discusses mouse wheel scrolling
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=283141
It does mention the systemd-hwdb (hardware database) which provides a list of common mice attribute values (refer /usr/lib/udev/hwdb.d/70-mouse.hwdb) and it is possible to create a custom .hwdb file with adjusted values for a given input device. I've seen this approach used to alter mice speed, but it is not a newbie exercise so I don't want to lead you down that experimental path with your level of knowledge. Instead, I'll leave you with a couple of links to pages discussing this subject (then you can decide for your self if you think it's beyond you etc)....

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-with-libinput
http://who-t.blogspot.com/2014/12/bu...-for-mice.html

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 07:46 PM

Ferrari... imwheel does indeed affect lines scrolled per "clicks" of the mouse wheel, but it didn't help for what I'm seeking.

In any MS Windows app that covers more than a page, you can press the mouse wheel down one time to "scroll lock", which then makes your cursor appear as a 4 arrow circular pointer, and you can then move the mouse in any direction to scroll large images, pages, text files, etc, left, right, up or down.

This is the effect I'm looking to replicate in Linux Mint.

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 08:01 PM

Yes, imwheel will only help with setting the scroll wheel speed (which you also requested).

It does appear that libinput 1.15 onwards is providing this feature. You can get the libinput version using

Code:

libinput --version

Quote:

libinput and button scrolling locks

For a few years now, libinput has provided button scrolling. Holding a designated button down and moving the device up/down or left/right creates the matching scroll events. We enable this behaviour by default on some devices (e.g. trackpoints) but it's available on mice and some other devices. Users can change the button that triggers it, e.g. assign it to the right button. There are of course a couple of special corner cases to make sure you can still click that button normally but as I said, all this has been available for quite some time now.

New in libinput 1.15 is the button lock feature. The button lock removes the need to hold the button down while scrolling. When the button lock is enabled, a single button click (i.e. press and release) of that button holds that button logically down for scrolling and any subsequent movement by the device is translated to scroll events. A second button click releases that button lock and the device goes back to normal movement. That's basically it, though there are some extra checks to make sure the button can still be used for normal clicking (you will need to double-click for a single logical click now though).

http://who-t.blogspot.com/2019/10/li...ing-locks.html

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 09:50 PM

My libinput version is 1.10.4

I can't seem to find any info on updating anywhere. The only article I found penned on Dec 5th just a few weeks ago said V.1.15 would be out soon.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...ut-1.15-Coming

ferrari · 01-02-2020, 10:08 PM

Yes, it's not available yet AFAIU. I did find build instructions here, but that was for 1.14.901 (and it took a little effort to get the dependencies sorted). In short, I think it's best to wait until it's available for your distro.

ImWolf · 01-02-2020, 10:14 PM

Yup... I think at my skill level you're right... I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Thanks for your help.

Wolf