I recently installed Lucid and have been trying to find instructions how to program my mouse (MS 5000 laser) to use the side buttons as back forward without much luck. At this point the left click button is starting to fail and I'm going to need a new mouse. I'm left handed so I will need an either hand mouse. I don't care if it wireless or not but NEEDS to be easy to program the side buttons to back and forward for Firefox 3. I'm kinda new to Linux so if it requires a lot of terminal activity please be specific.

Thanks so much. . .

I use the Microsoft Notebook Presenter mouse 8000. I use it on my laptop which is running Debian Squeeze. The backward and forward buttons, as well as the horizontal scrolls do work out of the box (my latop has bluetooth built in, and I can see under Microsoft preference that I can program left or right handed operation). But, I cannot get the magnification function to work. I used it for a little while in my desktop (debian lenny), but need to use its bluetooth dongle.

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So far, every mouse or keyboard I have used, even wirelessly, has worked out of the box with Ubuntu or Linux Mint with absolutely zero driver issues. I have for instance used a wireless mouse/keyboard combo with Jaunty and with Mint 7 back in Summer 2009 and both the keyboard *AND* the mouse worked. I have had no problems with such peripherals.

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I use a Logitech Anywhere MX mouse which has many buttons on it, including page up and down buttons on the side.

By the way, I recently discovered the program EasyStroke, which can be used to program any action to extra buttons on mice. I used to use btnx but that no longer works reliably with Ubuntu. EasyStroke is right in the repositories.

Finger Mouse is what I use.

They are cheap and Linux Friendly For me. Use mine to replace broken pad on one laptop. Works real well.

Wow! That mouse does a lot. Never heard of it before. Where is the MS preferences? When programmed for left hand operation does the back forward buttons change also? This is the problem I have now. the back button is on the left side and that's backward for me. All of my other PC's use Razer gaming mice with the back button on the right so it's easy to click with my left thumb to go back. Does the Bluetooth dongle plug into a USB port? Thanks for your help.

Thanks for getting back to me. I found a few pictures of this mouse and it looks like both side buttons (back-forward) are on the left side of the mouse? I'm left handed and would be inconvenient for me to use it that way. The MS 5000 mouse I have now is either handed but the back forward side buttons are reversed (function)and I don't know how to remap them. The mouse is starting to fail (left click doesn't always work now). This is why I asked about other mice to replace this one. I'm not knowledgeable about Ubuntu enough yet to reconfigure a mouse in the terminal. I had tried Easystroke and got the mouse to accept gestures holding the right click button while I move the mouse to go back or forward. Ideally, I would prefer the mouse operation to be like my others having the right side button assigned to go back and the left side button go forward.

The mouse I'm using now (MS 5000) worked "out of the box" but the side buttons are reversed for me being left handed. Do you know of an easy way or application to remap the side buttons?

I got the mouse mapped the way I wanted it using xinput. The only problem is it only stays that way during the session until I shut down or restart then it goes back to the original settings. I've read that xorg.conf can be configured to map this (or most any) mouse buttons. Could someone help me do this? Thanks in advance.

If you now know the commands to make your mouse work as you like, you could put them in a script, and enable that script to be run as "autostart" at your GUI login.

You might also like to post them here for other leftie users of the MS 5000 laser mouse to learn from.

To tell xorg how you want your mouse configured, try a search on xorg mouse button mapping

Thanks for the reply. I don't know how to write scripts. I guess I'll have to learn since nothing is "out of the box" for lefties. I would gladly post how I got the mouse to work using xinput but it is dynamic with Lucid and goes back to the original settings after a reboot or restart which makes it kinda useless for everyday use. I'm still trying to figure out how to create the same thing in xorg.conf. The code for xinput and xorg.conf appear to be quite similar. My xorg.conf doesn't even list a section for "input device". If anyone knows how to do this I would really appreciate hearing how to do it or to make xinput code stay there after a restart.

To generate an xorg.conf, first you need to stop X:
Press <CTRL><ALT><F2>
to get a "proper" terminal (not an X-terminal), and login as yourself.

Then become root
Stop X
And then run Xorg -configure (watch that CAPITAL "X" !)
An xorg.conf.new file will be generated in root's home dir, which is /root
You can copy it to where it needs to be, and rename it properly at the same time
Restart X
You should be back at the GUI login screen, and your xorg.conf will be read and used each time X starts.

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Did you Just try and go to >System>Preferences>Mouse>and then select left handed under orientation ? also a program called compiz configuration settings might work . good luck !

Well, I got used to using a mouse with the standard left/right click function. However, I use my left thumb side button (right side of mouse)to go back when browsing. I rarely use forward. All of the mice I've used with XP are fairly easy to change but I'm really finding it difficult to do with Linux. BTW, the MS 5000 mouse finally died so I ordered a new Razer gaming mouse. I'm sure I'll be facing the same problem with it also so I still need help making the right side button go back not forward.

I think I understand how to create this file now but I don't know what needs to go in it to map the buttons? I'm pretty new to using the terminal. As I just posted, My MS 5000 mouse finally quit so I ordered a new Razer mouse. Once I receive it I will reply on the button assignments. Thanks