Configuring Logitech mice (mx500, etc)

[poofyhairguy]

This how to just saved my Linux life. For the past few days I could not log into Ubuntu because the Xserver could not detect my mouse driver. I could comment out the mouse device part and get it to work, but the mouse had minimal functions. I was scared I would have to reinstall or quit using Ubuntu because I really like to scroll. But with the info in this how to and thread I have my mouse working better than before. Awesome!

Great how to.

[endy]

Thanks! Ironically I wrote this after a very, very long day when I was completely exhausted but I had this guide in my head for a few days and just wanted to get it out. I thought I'd managed to clear up most of the mistakes but just now noticed I mistyped the topic. That's what happens when you post on forums half asleep

Anyway, glad to hear this helped.

[spacemonkey]

What about a MediaPlay Mouse? Any way to get the media control buttons working? I really miss them.

[endy]

If you can get the buttons to register with xev then all you need to do is bind them to shortcuts I guess... I don't have this mouse so I don't know what level of support there is for it. If you try please post any success stories for others to find

[DancingSun]

I would like to add that it is NOT necessary to remap the scroll buttons. It seems a bit self-defeating that almost all of the guides tell you to assign buttons 9 and 10 to z-axis, but then remaps the buttons 9 and 10 to the position where buttons 4 and 5 are. Essentially, you are telling X that buttons named 9 and 10 are your z-axis buttons, then you remap the button names so that the physical buttons 4 and 5 are named 9 and 10. You might as well just assign 4 and 5 to the zaxismapping option and do away with remapping the buttons altogether.

I'm using MX510, and I did not go through the remapping stage when I configured my mouse, just as the user with the MX1000 mouse.

Here's how it should work:
Type the following command into your terminal:

xev

This will bring up a little window where you can move your mouse pointer into. You can see all of the events generated by the mouse. Try clicking each of the buttons on your mouse while the mouse pointer is inside the window. Make sure the mouse stays stationary, or else you'll get a bunch of movement events that will make finding the button events harder.

In my case, I can clearly see that my scroll wheel generates the same button events as my cruise buttons. So essentially they are of the same buttons (cruise up = scroll up, cruise down = scroll down). This tells me that my MX510 have 8 functional buttons, not 10! The number of buttons entered in xorg.conf should be the highest button number event, which is 8 in my case. So adjust your number of buttons option accordingly!

Now, to setup the zaxismapping in xorg.conf, take note of the button events generated by the scroll buttons, and enter them into the zaxismapping option. I believe most mice generate button events 4 and 5 for scroll wheels, and this is exactly what I have for the zaxismapping option:

Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"4 5"

BTW, this is a great guide! I've been wanting to write one myself, but was too lazy. On another note, endy, the first two part of this guide (the xorg.conf using evdev and button binding part) should be generic to any mice. So you could split those parts out as a generic configuration guide to multi-button mice with scroll wheels.

[prelude]

that user would be me

on my mx1000 I need to have 12 buttons in xorg to make things work properly, even though xev output only reports 10 diffrent buttons.

xev reports the following buttons.

left click: button 1
middle click: button 2
right click: button 3
scroll forward: button 4
scroll backward: button 5
tilt right: button 4
tilt left: button 5
forward thumb: button 8
app. button: button 6
thumb button: button 7
cruise forward: button 4 and 10
cruise backward: button 5 and 12

as you can see, my mouse reports all buttons from 1 to 12 but skips 9 and 11. I belive those two missing buttons are the tilt-wheel and either xorg/xev is unable to recieve/see them, or logitec has built in a switch that can be sent from the host machine into the mouse telling it to report the extra buttons or not.

anyhows, my point is that not all mice might work if one enters less buttons in xorg.conf than their mice really have.

[DancingSun]

Perhaps I should put it this way:

The number of buttons to be enter in xorg.conf equal the highest button number event recorded in xev.

Does that sound right? I'm not trying to say one should enter less number of buttons that what their mice really have, just that one should enter the "correct" number of buttons that the mice is actually generating.

[KompresZor]

Thanks for the great guide!!
I have an old Logitech 4 (6) button USB mouse ( M-BA47 ) and with a few minor changes this worked perfectly! All I had to do was change the setting in xorg.conf, restart X and everything worked.

Here is my xorg.conf.

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
        Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"Protocol"		"evdev"
	Option		"Dev Name"		"Logitech USB-PS/2 Mouse M-BA47"
	Option		"Dev Phys"		"usb-0000:00:07.3-1/input0"
        Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/event4"
	Option		"Buttons"		"6"
	Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"4 5"
EndSection

[endy]

Thanks DancingSun, I can't believe I didn't notice that! I've been doing that for over a year and never thought to question what I was doing. Guide updated

[DancingSun]

Thanks DancingSun, I can't believe I didn't notice that! I've been doing that for over a year and never thought to question what I was doing. Guide updated

No problem! Glad I could contribute! Also, you might want to update the part about the number of buttons to enter in xorg.conf.

Essentially, you should enter the highest button number that is captured by xev. I should note that to start off, one should enter a reasonably large value for the number of buttons in xev, or else some buttons will be prohibited from generating click events and won't be captured by xev. So here's the steps to find out how many buttons your mouse really have:

1. Choose a reasonably large number (usually the physical count of your mouse buttons plus the scroll wheel up and down), and enter that number in xorg.conf
2. Use xev to find out what's the largest button number captured. Replace what you had in xorg.conf with this number.

While you could enter more buttons that what your mouse really has, and it'll still work, but you will be using more system resources than what you really need. Since the X server will add hooks to listen to events generated from those extra, non-existent buttons.

endy, you might want to add the following link on xorg.conf mouse options to the guide for reference.
http://www.x.org/X11R6.8.2/doc/mouse5.html#21

prelude, you might want to take a look at the above link. It has a section on zaxismapping with horizontal scrolling. Although from the looks of your xev output, it looks like it won't work, but maybe you can play around with the settings a bit. So, right now you have the tilt wheels doing vertical scrolling as well?

Also, you'll see a "resolution" option documented in the above link. I don't know if this can replace the "logitech applet", but I guess you guys can experiment a bit with this option and see if it makes a difference.