I’ve never been the type to use an *abomination mouse (as I call them) and I prefer not to use an abomination keyboard, but there are a lot of you out there that seem to enjoy them so I thought I would share the steps on getting them to work.

(* abomination mouse & keyboard, in my mind, is anything other than a standard mouse and keyboard. If your mouse has 6,000 buttons and your keyboard has enough buttons and dials to control a death-robot and soon rule the world it is an abomination.)

Below are the steps for setting up your 5 (or more) button mouse for use in Firefox (tomorrow’s tip is support within Nautilus!).

  1. Backup your xorg.conf file (ALWAYS backup this file before even thinking about touching it): sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf-backup
  2. Edit the file: sudo nano gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  3. Find the Section “Input Device” for your mouse and change the following:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
.....
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
.....
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

to include the multiple button mouse support:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
…..
Option “Protocol” “ExplorerPS/2″
…..
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
Option “Buttons” “7″
Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 6 7″
EndSection

At this point you can restart your computer (or possibly just GNOME using ctrl-alt-backspace). You should then have support for your additional buttons within Firefox. Enjoy your world domination!

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Comments

11 Responses to “Support for 5-button mouse in Firefox : Ubuntu (6.06.1 / 6.10)”

  1. Ken Pryor on December 1st, 2006 1:20 pm

    I just did this for my Logitech mx 1000 mouse a few days ago. Works like a charm, for those of us into “abomination” mice ;) KP

  2. Ubuntu Tutorials on December 1st, 2006 7:55 pm

    I’m glad it was helpful. New tutorials every day :)

  3. Aaron on February 17th, 2007 12:44 pm

    I used this instruction on my 6.10 install and I have the wheel and side buttons reversed, meaning the side buttons scroll pages and the wheel traverses the browser. I have the MX510, I also used the IMWheel startup script. Is this the typical setup? In my mind it should be reversed. Any suggestions?

  4. Psychiccyberfreak on March 3rd, 2007 1:08 pm

    @aaron:
    try inserting this:

    Option “ZAxisMapping” “6 7″
    Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 5 6″

  5. Arseniy on March 10th, 2007 3:32 am

    Help please!
    I tried to modify xorg.conf several times but with the same result - nothing changes. I have A4 X7-750F 5 button mouse and my xorg currently looks like:

    Section “ServerLayout”
    Identifier “Layout0″
    Screen 0 “Screen0″
    InputDevice “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
    InputDevice “Mouse0″ “CorePointer”
    EndSection

    Section “InputDevice”
    # generated from default
    Identifier “Mouse0″
    Driver “mouse”
    Option “Protocol” “auto”
    Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
    Option “Emulate3Buttons” “no”
    Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
    Option “Buttons” “7″
    Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 6 7″
    EndSection

    On Ubuntu 6.10, GNOME 2.16.1

    Thanks in advance :)

  6. erwinrm on March 23rd, 2007 9:10 pm

    Thanks, this works great for my MS IntelliMouse Explorer 3. The steps are just slightly different than what I had to do before for SUSE.

  7. Hugo’s blog » Blog Archive » Linux working more and more on April 15th, 2007 11:57 pm

    [...] finally found a link on how to get my extra fancy buttons to work in X. Not terribly important, but the list of [...]

  8. Jamie Sawyer on April 20th, 2007 5:10 pm

    Worked nicely, fixed the issue I made following another guide :) Thanks man!

    Jamie

  9. Nik Saribird on December 22nd, 2007 5:32 pm

    Thanks!!! Great tutorial!!! Really helped!

  10. Anotherhero on May 1st, 2008 10:53 am

    Stuff changed for me since I upgraded to Ubuntu Hardy

    Identifier “Mouse0″
    Driver “mouse”
    Option “Protocol” “auto”
    Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
    Option “Emulate3Buttons” “no”
    Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5 6 7″
    Option “Buttons” “9″
    Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 8 9″

    Did the trick for me

  11. Kenny on July 7th, 2008 5:43 pm

    From http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Mouse+buttons+do+not+work+as+Back+and+Forward

    “In Firefox 3 on Linux, the mouse button assignments for Back and Forward have changed, to follow X11 customs. Previous versions of Firefox used buttons 6 and 7 for Back and Forward, respectively. Firefox 3 uses buttons 8 and 9.”

    So the important thing to change is ButtonMapping from “1 2 3 6 7″ to:
    Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 8 9″

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