Mouse middle click configuration

[TuZhao]

Welcome to the Nth thread about configuring a mouse.
I'll be concise: I'm kinda new to Linux, I decided to go for Ubuntu for its alleged userfriendliness but I already spent hours to configure (almost) succesfully the touchpad. Now I'm losing sleep to get the mouse work as I'd like.
I have no fancy mice with dozens of buttons, but a plain and simple USB Logitech Pilot Wheelmouse, with cord and ball and 2 keys + wheel.
Well, I just seem to be unable to configure the middle click to act as the back function, like I do in windoze. Back in the browsers, and back in the file browser. Simple as that.
I tried almost everything I googled for. lmwheel doesn't do the trick. It says the middle click is Button6 while xev says it's Button2.
A couple of .imwheelrc I tried:
"*." None,Button2,Alt_L|Left
"^Firefox-bin$" None,Left,Alt_L|Left
I don't even remember why I used Left as definition for the mouse button in the second example, it's been days since I started this chore!
My current relevant section in xorg.conf looks like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 4 5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
EndSection
When I tried the following, Ubuntu would hang after the loading bar with a black screen if I booted without the mouse plugged in:
#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Configured Mouse"
# Driver "evdev"
# Option "CorePointer"
# Option "Protocol" "evdev"
# Option "Dev Name" "Logitech USB Mouse"
# Option "Dev Phys" "usb-*/input0"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/event2"
# Option "Buttons" "5"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
#EndSection


I'm really hating all of this. It shouldn't be so fiendishly hard making a middle click work as desired. At night I should be sleeping, not cursing at linux configuration files while drinking beer.
Please help the Ubuntu community: avoid it losing a new user ;)

[annda]

unfortunately i have an unproductive reponse: linux actually uses middle-click, it's not a gimmick like a configurable 7th button (or the 3rd button under windows). that's why it's so hard to remap it, like remapping the right-click in windows. but i'm almost sure it can be done. it's just difficult - as i said, unproductive, sorry...

[pyros]

have you looked here?
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#Activate_side-mouse-buttons_in_FireFox
not the side button in your case, but it might be of help.
If not, check out this post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=316441

[TuZhao]

Thanks for the answers.
It is true that Ubuntu "sees" the middle click, in fact on the destkop I can click-drag with it and get the "move here, etc." context menu. I wonder why you can't configure it with a simple mouse control panel. That would be what people expect from a user friendly linux release!
Pyros: I saw both the links in my recent wandering around looking for solutions, but I still haven't tried the xte / xbindkeys way. That'll be my next (and final attempt)...

[pyros]

Thanks for the answers.
It is true that Ubuntu "sees" the middle click, in fact on the destkop I can click-drag with it and get the "move here, etc." context menu. I wonder why you can't configure it with a simple mouse control panel. That would be what people expect from a user friendly linux release!
Pyros: I saw both the links in my recent wandering around looking for solutions, but I still haven't tried the xte / xbindkeys way. That'll be my next (and final attempt)...

Unfortunatly, there isn't a preexisting solution; I know it is something that has been discussed for upcomming releases, but it doesn't exist at the moment. Of course ubuntu is improving with every release, and I am certainly hopeful.

[TuZhao]

Solved! :)
Luckily xbindkeys saved my day, though I had to use the second method (xte instead of xvkbd).
Whoa, this time I really thought that I had to give up, but these 20 minutes' work while I was waiting for the MotoGP were worth a lot ;)

For anyone willing to bind the middle click to the back function, this is the .xbindkeysrc file to use:
"/usr/bin/xte 'keydown Alt_L' 'key Left' 'keyup Alt_L' &"
b:2
Put it in your home and add xbindkeys to the startup, et voilà (assuming that your middle button is button 2).

Well well, now I feel better about this Linux thing :D