Hey Folks!

For starters, I'm a Linux newbie (and jumping into Slackware 9.1 no less!). I understand that uttering the word "Microsoft" in here is probably sacrilege, but I do have one cherished Microsoft product - my "Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0" mouse!

Unfortunately, it seems that my cordless mouse can't be properly configured using Slack's xf86config program. I suspect lack of driver support, but I wanted to see if anyone else in here knows a workaround, or if maybe I missed something. For now, I'm using my old Dell mouse to get around, but I can't get the mouse wheel to work on that either.

Basically, I have two questions:

1. Is there a way to make Slackware play nice with my Microsoft cordless IntelliMouse (4 button) ?
2. How do I enable the mousewheel on my standard, two-button mouse?

Help!

Hi

I have also the same Microsoft mouse. This is what I did (there may be an easier way to do this)

-compile a new kernel with built-in support for USB HID Devices (look at the sticky topic here to compile 2.4.22, works fine). For me the modules just didn´t work with that mouse. after that make sure u press the connect-button in the mouse, i forgot to do that once and couldn´t figure why it didn´t work

for wheel look for "mouse wheel" on this forum to get the exact syntax. I am on a w2k now. I´ll post u more tomorrow if nobody else does.

Is it a usb mouse?
If yes uncomment the occourrrencies of usbmouse in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules at section HID like this

### USB device support:
# (Note that once you've loaded USB hub support most USB devices will
# trigger the kernel to load their modules automatically)
# USB "Human Interface Device" driver; handles most USB mice, joysticks,
# gamepads, steering wheels, keyboards, trackballs and digitizers.
/sbin/modprobe hid
# Simple HIDBP USB mouse driver, if hid doesn't work:
/sbin/modprobe usbmouse

this should enable HID module and usb mouse module at boot

Then edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config at section Imput device like this

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Buttons" "4"

this should enable the fourth button and the wheel
Make a backup copy of any file your are going to edit I
reboot
hope this helps
Ciao

Urka,

I did what you said and I noticed that my mouse was detected at reboot. Good. However, the mouse behaves erratically, moving up or down only and not left or right, and the buttons don't work.

Also, there's now some hang time before the mouse is actually able to move the pointer during window manager startup. With my standard mouse, I don't have to wait.

I'm using Fluxbox and Gnome for testing.

Suggestions?

as i said before, you have to make a new kernel with built-in support for usb-hid. otherwise you can move only up´ndown.
trust me, this is exactly the same situation that i had a few months ago. just build the kernel.

Sounds good Pevelius. I wanted to try first without compiling a new kernel since I'm kinda new to that!

Thank you!

last chance before you look at XFREE86 website on which there are some useful infos
edit
"Option" "Buttons" "4" with "7"
If this won't work have a look at XFREE86 website in order to collect some infos about your mouse.
may be here you find what you need
http://www.xfree86.org/4.4.0/mouse.4.html
Ciao