HOWTO: use your Intellimouse's side buttons

[teimu]

I had ubuntu for a while, and one thing that really bugged me was that I couldn't seem to get my USB Intellimouse to use it's side buttons for navigation. I searched these forums for help, and indeed I found some. However, these solutions went through more hassle than needed (ie imwheel...why?). There was no quick and easy way to make this simple fix. Through trial and error, I found out a very simple way to get these navigation buttons working like they should in applications like firefox.

First sudo to root:

sudo -s -H

Then, open your xorg.conf, which, in most cases is in /etc/X11/:
(Use whatever editor you like; vi is a personal preference. replace 'vi' with 'gedit' for a presumably more familar feel to you newbies)

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find the section labeled

Section "InputDevice"

Include, at least, the following lines in that section. Change whatever needed. You dont need to insert the comments:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ExplorerPS/2"    #new explorer protocol...even works with usb mice
        Option          "Buttons"               "7"      #tells X11 the number of buttons on the mouse
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"    #tells X11 which buttons to use for scrolling, 4 is up, 5 is down (i think)
EndSection

I would also recommend commenting the Emulate3DButtons line. Its a feature for old mice, which Intellimouse is not:

#       Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"

Then restart Gnome (assuming that's your desktop. sorry KDEers):

/etc/init.d/gdm restart

And viola! Now your sidebuttons work!!! Test it out in firefox. That was simple and easy, wasn't it?

Enjoy!

Post any questions, and with prayer, you will get a response. However, it probably won't be from me...I don't really know Linux too well.

[crypto178]

Thanks! Only one file to edit, and it works fine.

[Adragontattoo]

Just for the sake of my brain, does this enable my Optical trackball that has 5 buttons to work?

XP the two far right buttons are forward and back in Firefox
Ubuntu(which I am valiantly trying to figure out how to use, total noob to linux) one does nothing and the other ports me to a random page if I click it.

[teimu]

Just for the sake of my brain, does this enable my Optical trackball that has 5 buttons to work?

XP the two far right buttons are forward and back in Firefox
Ubuntu(which I am valiantly trying to figure out how to use, total noob to linux) one does nothing and the other ports me to a random page if I click it.

I wouldn't really know, as I only have a the Intellimouse. It would be interesting to see how that could work though. Play around with the config file and tell me if you get anywhere. I would start by replacing the 7 buttons to 5 buttons.

Also, if its any consolation, whenever I used to right click, I also was ported to a wierd page. Hopefully with the right config, that will change as it did for me. Good luck!

[RavenOfOdin]

I have an Intellimouse, and I've always been able to use the side buttons.

[Mellon]

it works for me on a BTC 5 Buttons mouse


thx

[adam.tropics]

Not problem related, but

ports me to a random page if I click it.

Ha! I kind of like that idea!...just with the net being what it is these days, you might need a childlock for the mouse!!

[ketsugi]

No go for me. I'm using a Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 with the tilt wheel, which makes for 9 buttons in total. Prior to doing this, my forward button mapped to a right click and the back mapped to a middle-click. Now neither button does anything at all.

[KillrBuckeye]

This actually worked for me, but it created another problem. I can no longer restart GDM using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace---it just takes me to a command line login prompt. If I try to manually start GDM, it [FAIL]s. I can start X just fine though. Oddly, after a reboot GDM starts up just fine. What would cause this strange behavior?

[BrowneR]

I have a IntelliMouse optical USB and am running Dapper.
My side buttons have never done anything so i thought i would give this a try.
I have updated my xorg.conf as above but my mouse buttons still dont work.
As far as i can tell the buttons that do work are mapped as follows:

button1=left click
button2=right click
button3=?
button4=wheel up
button5=wheel down
button6=middle click
button7=?

this mapping seems a bit odd to me as it leaves button 3 and 7 for the side buttons on my mouse. would changing the zaxis mapping to "3 4" just move everything up so that my side buttons were 6 and 7?

I have also tried the method using imwheel which gave some odd results. I managed to get my side buttons to do the job of the mouse wheel scrolling but then my mouse wheel did nothing! Its obviously just a configuration problem but i cant seem to get it to work correctly even after multiple tweaks to the config.

Any bright ideas?
TIA

(i also have my laptops trackpad in the xorg.conf. not sure if it may be fouling things up?

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver         "synaptics"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option         "Edges" "1900 5400 1800 3900"
    Option         "Finger" "25 30"
    Option         "MaxTapTime" "20"
    Option         "MaxTapMove" "220"
    Option         "VertScrollDelta" "100"
    Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "5000"
EndSection

)