PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] Slimblade Trackball



questioner1234
April 12th, 2012, 02:38 AM
Hi,
I am a total Linux newbie. I installed Ubuntu 12 today. I am not able to get anything except the scroll wheel and the bottom two buttons working on my Slimblade Trackball from Kensington.


Of course I read the forums and went to Kensington's site and searched Google a number of different ways but I am not finding any answer.

FWIW, I have to "go back" to Windows if I can't get this trackball to work b/c I am reliant on it for my job :(

It seems like there ought to be some way to program all four buttons just as there is in Windows. I really know nothing about Linux or Ubuntu and getting the trackball working is the first order of business fro me. So far, however, no luck.


Can anyone explain in a simple step by step language how to hook this trackball up with a driver?


Thanks in advance!

kurt18947
April 12th, 2012, 07:51 AM
The only possibility I see (though I'm not confident it will help) is try searching "mouse" in Ubuntu software center. There's a mouse & pad configuration utility. I don't know that it will support 3rd & 4th buttons though. Logitech wireless trackballs do use 3rd & 4th buttons as page forward/page back but I don't know that they're easily programmable.

questioner1234
April 17th, 2012, 08:13 PM
For anyone interested at Ubuntu, just because I couldn't get my trackball working, I am not switching to Linux. I would have GLADLY paid 50 or even 100 bucks to have a real alternative to Windows, for a variety of reason including I am a software dev and can't stand their software patent attack on my profession.

Nevertheless, I have to get work done. My computer to me most of the time is basically just my keyboard, my mouse and my screens. If you're going to tell me one of those three just doesn't work, then I have to just forget about Linux. It's 2012. Trackballs just have to work. If you really can't make trackballs work then I don't know what to tell you that will convince you that the next release of Ovulating Ostrich or whatever is a total waste of time compared to making input devices work on Linux. Apparently writing device drivers is such a thankless task that you can't even pay someone to do it, despite having a billionaire backer.


On Slashdot there was a recent discussion about freedom and walled gardens . Someone claimed that Jobs had found a "flaw" in humans where they prefer convenience and predictability over the "freedom" afforded by Linux. The fact is the ultimate "freedom" is the freedom to spend your time as you see fit. The whole "fix it yourself" attitude of Linux is in direct opposition to that freedom. I can't and won't spend hours and days trying different stuff just to get my trackball to work the way it should. That's Ubuntu's job and if Ubuntu and Linux generally doesn't or can't do it, then I can't give up that much real freedom to the hypothetical "freedom" of using open source software and not feeding the Microsoft beast. That time is better spent fighting Microsoft in other ways using, I guess, Windows, in which I can be at least be productive while fighting Microsoft.

A certain kind of Linux geek can't fathom what I am trying to tell them here. I am trying to tell you that the basics are more important than the frosting. I am trying to tell you that peoples' time and productivity - which is another measure of freeing up time - is what they value most. I am trying to tell you that you're failing on the desktop because simple and basic things don't "just work" and not because your interface doesn't look and behave like Apple's. I am trying to tell you that you are failing on the desktop because you have misplaced priorities which serve the pleasure of the devs and not the utility of the consumer.

I'd pay 100 bucks - or whatever a Window's license is going for these days- for Ubuntu if it means it works. Your business model on paper is very competitive, even dominant. People hate Windows for a huge number of reasons and more people will take conscious affirmative action to support open source and all those people are potentially your customers but you're bitch slapping them at the very start of the relationship.


Don't see things that way? That's the problem.