I just installed Ubuntu on my T42 and working through beginners problems. One thing thats been annoying me is when using XP, I have a button on my keyboard that navigates Back and Forward in web browsers. I cant figure out how to get these buttons to do the same in Linux, right now they dont do anything.

Also, I have a set of buttons, one for left click, right click, and when the middle button is held down and I move the trackpoint, it acts as a scroll wheel. However, the middle scroll wheel currently doesnt do anything, any way to enable this?

what browser/s do you use? i have the page fwd/back keys working with this method:

1. create ~/.Xmodmap if you don't have one
2. put the following keycodes in it:
3. put "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap" (no quotes) in ~/.xinitrc (or whatever startup file you use)
4. install the moz/ff xpi plugin from here: http://dqd.com/~mayoff/notes/thinkpad/dqdnavkeys/

i've never gotten the keys to work in non-moz browsers, but i don't use those mainly anyway. unless someone else knows how to do it, you might just have to use the alt+ arrow keys for non-moz browsers.

I am using Firefox so hopefully that will work for me. However, Im extremely new to Linux and didn't really understand where the xmod files would be, or how to know what startup Im using.

what distro and desktop are you using? do you start X at the console by typing the startx command, or do you boot right into X with some startup manager that asks you to login with name and password?

the ~/ is shorthand for your home directory. so if your user were named tux, ~/.Xmodmap would be the same as /home/tux/.Xmodmap. the dot in front of the filename means it's a hidden file or directory. at the console, you would do ls -a to see the hidden files/dirs.

Im using Ubuntu with GNOME, and after some loading I get prompted for my user and password before arriving at the desktop. I enabled View Hidden Files and dont see a .Xmodmap in my home

the startup file might already point there, so you might just be able to create the .Xmodmap file and restart to see if it works.

to get the scroll to work with the trackpoint, add these two lines to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in the mouse section:

Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"

I beleive I have to login to superuser to edit that, but when I type su, and then get prompted for my password, i get an Authentication Failed error. Im using the same password I use to log in, and the password works when I try to edit things like network connections.

doesn't ubuntu use sudo by default? you could try using that with your regular password.

awesome, the scrolling and back/forward buttons are up and working, thanks slackhack