Left-handed mouse
 

I just installed Mandrake Community 10.1, but I cannot get it to use the Left-handed Mouse option. The setting is there in the Config, but it is greyed out. I had already tried out Mandrake Move with the same problem, but I assumed it was just cut out of Move to make it fit on the one CD.

Apart from the annoyance of continually pressing the wrong button, I just don't see the point of including the option if it is just greyed out. If Mandrake don't want left-handed users, why include the option at all?

try setting the mouse config to a different mouse...so like instead of "2 button mouse" to "custom mouse"
or whatever the options are..i think that maybe the mouse/mouse driver that you selected doesn't have the left handed option..so try a diff one
but be careful..i was playing with resolution settings and "broke" xorg..though it was easy to fix

not greyed out in my install -- have you installed everything you need for kde mouse support?

Left-handed mouse
 

In Mandrake/KDE, I had to write a script that runs in start-up to mod my mouse settings for left-handed use. I'm at work now---if when I get home you still haven't figured it out I'll post it.

Left-handed mouse-stopgap solution
 

In the meanwhile, if you log into the Gnome desktop, in the system configuration, you can set the mouse to be lefthanded. I don't know why this is not available in Mandrake/KDE, but that seems to be the way it is.

OK, here's what I did to get a left-handed mouse in KDE:

1. I used the xmodmap -pp command at the command line to determine the current button configuration of my mouse. In my case it was: 1 2 3 6 7 4 5. So what you want to do is switch values 1 and 3 (the 2d place value, I believe, being the scroll wheel). The command is:

xmodmap -e "pointer = 3216745"

So, what you do is write a script that will load on startup to invoke that modification.

2. I wrote a file in Gedit called .Xmodmap that simply stated:

“pointer = 3 2 1 6 7 4 5” (without the quotation marks). As you can see, this reverses the order of the mouse buttons from the usual right-handed configuration.

and saved it to my home directory.

3. Then, I put the script to invoke this command in the ~/.kde/Autostart/ directory (hence, this script only works for the KDE desktop. I figured, being a lazy so and so, that I could just use the Gnome GUI to make my mouse left-handed, and Gnome is the only other desktop I'm using). My script looks like this:


#!/bin/sh

# reverses mouse buttons

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap



The second line is just a comment and can be omitted. There are also other places to save the script that would be good across different GUIs, but I have not tried that yet so I can't comment. Maybe others can.


Well, I'm new at Linux so there may be better ways to do this, but this is working for me. Hope it helps.

Hi all,

I have a much more simple solution.
When nothing helped me, I tried to
1) configure my mouse to "None".
2) Then I restarted X (using keyboard)
3) and set the mouse to left-handed in kcontrol (KDE Control Center).
4) Then I started drakconf (Set Up Your Computer or so) again and set the mouse driver back to one that makes sense (the universal USB/PS2 driver, i. e.)

The option buttons in KDE Control Center now remain enabled.

Anyway, tell me when this helps you.

Pavel

Hey cigydd, thanks. Worked like a charm :D

Cheers

Hi snow_bound,

I'm happy it worked for you.

By me it was a bit more difficult. After I had posted my solution, my mouse went back to a deffensive right-handed state ;)

Nothing helped me then to make my mouse left-handed again, not even the posted solution.

Before some weeks, I said bye to Mandrake 10.0 and 10.1 and moved to Mandriva LE 2005. This version of Mandrake is already left-handed-user-friendlier :)

I'm looking to make the upgrade transition myself. I simply haven't had time to do much configuring on my Mandrake 10.1

I'm hoping that Mandriva will come pre-loaded with better set up => less work for me

:D

Regards