Need input-hotplug - solves Logitech MX500 mouse forward/back buttons not detected

[ShamrockUK]

Reporting for someone else - apparently the buttons do an action of some sort, acting like left-click sometimes but definitely not forward or back. The mouse is connected via USB.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I have one, it needs special work to set up. Look in the forums, there are howto's available. This could perhaps be left as a wishlist bug against xorg.

[Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen)]

If you change the mouse section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Configured Mouse"
        Driver "mouse"
        Option "CorePointer"
        Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
        Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7"
EndSection

does that help?

[Jan Kunder (jan-kunder)]

Nope, if you have running GNOME session.
Look here
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+bug/147676
(and merge?)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

In Hardy we will upgrade to xorg-server which has input hotplug capabilities. With that feature, we may be better able to address input features such as this one, or perhaps add better GUI config tools or something. Currently, there's not a clear way of getting this to work out of the box.

In bug 47579, which appears to be a dupe of this one, the following workaround was suggested:

The program imwheel and needs to be installed. Then the following needs to be in ~/.imwheelrc:

".*"
None, Thumb1, Alt_L|Left
None, Thumb2, Alt_L|Right

Another approach, suggested in dupe bug 107900, is to switch from "ImPS/2" to "ExplorerPS/2". Currently, xserver's postinst script sets ImPS/2 as the default protocol, which is not correct for all mouse types.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Additional tricks/workarounds mentioned by Jan Kunder in bug 147676:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-mouse
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MX1000Mouse
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=57794&highlight=mouse+scroll+wheel
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1295974&postcount=13

I'm also moving this from wishlist to a High priority bug. If anyone gets a chance to do some testing against xserver 1.4's input hotplugging, please report your findings here.

[cornbread (corn13read)]

Sorry for the off topic response... I am wondering how this can be High importance but this bug #134141 that affects all thinkpads with scroll button is in wishlist when there is an easy clear fix? This fix would make it so newbs with thinkpads wouldn't get frustrated with lack of ootb functionality...

[ulrich (ulrich)]

the workaround suggested in #173833 ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev/+bug/173833 ) solves this bug.

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

I have the same problem with Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer, connected via USB.

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

Tollef Fog Heen,
Yes editing the config file and changing to "ExplorerPS/2" and adding Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7" worked for me with my MS IntelliMouse Explorer.
Thank you!

Now if they only could fix this in the default configuration, because this is too tricky for new users.

[Giles Weaver (gweaver)]

Yes, this is a pain in the proverbial for new users. Ideally mouse configuration would be handled automatically, or failing that by a simple gui interface. *Other* operating systems can use extra mouse buttons without the need for manual configuration, so why not Ubuntu?

[Aryeh Gregor (simetrical+launchpad)]

Are there other OSes that use X.Org and have this enabled by default? From comment 4, by Bryce Harrington, I get the impression that this is not currently easy to do by default with X.Org.

[Giles Weaver (gweaver)]

By *Other* operating systems I meant Windows...
Surely if Microsoft have been doing it for years it can't be that hard?!?

Does Mac OS use X.Org? I wonder if multi-button mice work out of the box with that?

[Aryeh Gregor (simetrical+launchpad)]

It's not a question of hard, it's a question of priorities and whether anyone's stepped up to do it. That's generally the case with open-source. Most of the work is done by volunteers, and if no volunteer does it, it will take a long time to get done, if it ever will be (this will be at some point, I'm sure). It's been implied that it's not so simple (for whatever reason) as just packaging the xorg.conf hacks that people have been passing around. If it requires significant code modifications to X.Org, or writing extensions, or whatever, it does not necessarily qualify as easy. That it's been done by others in a totally different environment doesn't mean it wouldn't take three weeks of a few people working full-time to get working on X.Org. I don't know, I'm making no assumptions about whether this is easy or hard or reflects incompetence or good prioritization, or anything. I haven't looked at the code, and have nothing to do with Ubuntu except using it and participating in bug reports.

OS X does not use any X server protocol. It uses its own proprietary API, apparently (from Googling) called Quartz, although maybe that's not analogous to X, I don't know. It definitely does not use X.Org or XFree86 or any other X by default, although you can use them if you want instead of the defaults, since it's Unix-like.

[Giles Weaver (gweaver)]

Ok then, its a very simple request (made by probably thousands of users), that could well be very hard to implement fully (in X.Org).
It may well require a lot of developer time, but its a glaring shortcoming in Ubuntu (and other distros for that matter).

The Ubuntu desktop edition page at http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/desktopedition claims:
  Ubuntu 'Just Works'
  We've done all the hard work for you. Once Ubuntu is installed, all the basics are in place so that your system will be immediately usable.

Well, quite obviously, in this case, it doesn't "just work", and something needs to be done about it. It should be a priority because its something that gets noticed by a lot of new users, and there are certainly a lot of comments about it in the forums. I have just done a quick search (for mouse buttons) and have found 18 relevant threads, with a total of 1155 posts and over 300000 views!

These three threads are definitely worth a look:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=410342 - Gutsy idea pool specification (62 posts)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=65471&highlight=mouse+buttons (389 posts, 148,823 views)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=219894&highlight=mouse+buttons (613 posts, 163,309 views)

So there is certainly a need, and a solution would definitely benefit a lot of (mostly new) users.

In my simplistic view of the world, there are two things that could be done:
1) Ubuntu/Canonical give "encouragement" and support to the X.Org team. If possible, these bug reports should be elevated.
2) Somebody puts together a simple GUI tool that allows new users to change the mouse configuration (in the xorg.conf) without having to edit xorg.conf manually (and therefore risk completely screwing it up). The application might even poll the usb devices and attempt to guess the mouse model.

If I was able, I would have a crack at the GUI tool myself, but as I'm not I just hope that somebody who is in a position to do something about this can pick it up.

[Greg Taylor (gtaylor)]

This really shouldn't need a GUI to work, it's counter to the aforementioned "Just works" mindframe, and is also counter to bug #1. This is the kind of thing that most users expect to not have to worry about. Keyboards and mice are basic peripherals that most operating systems pick up and require no real thought from the user in 98% of the cases, this should be the same for Ubuntu.

There's a glaring problem here, how can we help troubleshoot it and figure out what needs to be fixed? Has anyone heard anything from the xorg guys regarding this?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Xorg upstream is indeed focused on solving this via input-hotplug, which we expect to hit Ubuntu in a stable enough form by Hardy+1.

We had evaluated input-hotplug for Hardy, but after spending a good bit of time found it just was not mature enough - it actually made configuring non-default input settings *harder* than doing it in xorg.conf, so opted to stick with the devil we know. A GUI for adjusting settings to something other than defaults is definitely needed, and being discussed upstream with gnome-control-center (see gnomecc mailing list for discussion). Comment 13 is exactly right about the situation with all of this.

[Aryeh Gregor (simetrical+launchpad)]

Info upstream about input-hotplug:

http://wiki.x.org/wiki/XInputHotplug

I take it, then, that the problem is not that X doesn't support five-button mice, but that it has to be told before the server starts up whether the mouse is three-button or five-button, and something bad would happen if it were told a three-button mouse was five-button?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Lowering the importance to be in line with other similar bugs.

[quodlibetor (quodlibetor)]

While this is one of the absolute most irritating things about installing--and often updating--any distro, to be fair to the devs, windows needs an install CD to get every mouse I've ever bought working, and I've never used a mac with more than 3 buttons. Although that ball-thing in the middle of some of them is totally, ridiculously, sweet.

That said, looking forward to the day when I don't have to spend hours googling for the hack that doesn't break something weird.

[cornbread (corn13read)]

I have submitted a blueprint that would fix this from happening in the future:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/hwdb-hotplug

If you want to vote on it:

<a href="http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/7475/">
<img src="http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/7475/image/1/" />
</a>

[Pelládi Gábor (pelladigabor)]

I have a Logitech MX Revolution and the back/forward buttons worked out of the box on Ubuntu 8.04.1 in Firefox 3.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

works for me with logitech mx400, on intrepid live cd 20080711

[Aryeh Gregor (simetrical+launchpad)]

I suspect Firefox works its own magic to get forward/back to work regardless of support by X. It works for me in Firefox but not, for instance, Epiphany (which also uses Gecko 1.9).

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We've recently turned on input-hotplug in Intrepid. Potentially the issue is now fixed, so please re-test against intrepid.

If it's still not working, then additional work may be required beyond just input hotplug, in which case it's probably not suitable for being milestoned.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

It's been some weeks with no response. I *think* this should be fixed now, so am going to close it, but if you can reproduce it with the latest Intrepid, please don't hesitate to reopen it - and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the output of both `lshal` and `xinput list`.

[antistress (antistress)]

i'm running intrepid alpha 6 up to date from main server and i've a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer, connected via USB and back/forward buttons still don't work in Epiphany nor Nautilus

it works in Firefox as usual

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

that's not a driver bug, instead the apps need to be changed to use those buttons (like firefox does).

[PhilippeDePass (depassp)]

This is a bug in GNOME/Nautilus, not Ubuntu. There is a patch available, but it hasn't been contributed yet...

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314800