laptop mouse pad

[kge420]

 I am using a Satellite 2805 and it has typical right and left mouse buttons which work fine. It also has two smaller buttons above the L&R buttons that are for scrolling up and down. Is there a way to enable these? Thanks, Keith

[rbistolfi]

Hi Keith, never did something like that, my Omnibook has just two buttons, but I think I can give you some pointers, since we don't have many topics about this issue in the forum.
First you have to find out how the buttons are recognized by the system. Open a terminal and run the xev command. It will draw a white window, focus on it and press the buttons. You will get in the terminal something like this, between many other things, just find the line with "button". It will look like this:

Code:

ButtonPress event, serial 26, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
    root 0x1a6, subw 0x1800002, time 11045186, (42,41), root:(43,58),
    state 0x10, button 1, same_screen YES

Here I pressed the button 1  . Do the same with the other button and write down both numbers.
Then as root, open your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with your favorite text editor, and find the line which says:

Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

Replace "4 5" with the numbers you got from the xev output.
If there is no such line, you write it on the InputDevice section for your mouse, it looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse1"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/mouse"
    Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

EndSection

After this you have to restart the X server, close all your apps and press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. Login again, test the thing, and hopefully... enjoy.

[kge420]

 rbistolfi, thanks for the timely reply. I typed in "xev" and the only buttons which gave a response are the left and right mouse buttons. The other two gave no response at all, as if they are not recognized. Keith

[kge420]

 ...also when I did my install of VL5.9 I chose the 2-button mouse option. I didn't know that the other two buttons acted as a scroll wheel. Is there a way to change my default mouse?

[rbistolfi]

Go to VASM > Super > Hardware > Mouseset
I think after pick the right option there everything should work after restarting the X server, If not give another attempt to our first method.

[kge420]

 No luck with any of these suggestions, rbistolfi. I have searched some other linux forums and Im not alone with this problem. It's not the end of the world though, I just wanted to see if they could be made to work. Keith

[rbistolfi]

They are not recognized as mouse buttons? No output from xev at all? If no output I think they are not being recognized at a hardware level. We should try some xorg.conf options then.

[uelsk8s]

i think you need to use the synaptics driver.
there are some examples in the forum that i remember seeing.

[kge420]

 I will search around for them. I also have trouble with my back space button. It doesn't go to the previous page when pressed. Any suggestions. uelsk8s, thanks for following me around and making sure I get this old machine as right as possible. Keith

[GrannyGeek]

I also have trouble with my back space button. It doesn't go to the previous page when pressed.

Type
about:config
in the address bar. In the Filter: box, type
backspace
and hit Enter. Double-click on
browser backspace action
and in the box that comes up, type 0 (that is, zero) for the Integer Value and choose OK.

You don't need to restart the browser. Now the backspace should take you to the previous page.
--GrannyGeek

[kge420]

GrannyGeek, works like a charm. Thanks alot. You wouldn't have any advice for the scrolling buttons would you?
  Thanks again, Keith

[GrannyGeek]

If you mean the scrolling buttons you can't get to work, I have no idea. A couple of my mice have extra buttons, but I've never tried to get them going. I don't use them in Windows, either, but I could because the driver gives me that choice.

In SeaMonkey, you can go to Edit menu, Preferences, Advanced, Mouse Wheel, and select various actions for the scroll wheel by itself and in combination with Control, Shift, and Alt. I haven't been able to find a similar setting for Firefox.

Opera has mouse gestures built in and you can also enable what you want the middle button to do.
--GrannyGeek

[rbistolfi]

Keith:
If xev didn't show anything while pushing the buttons I would say they are not being recognized at a hardware level. Did you try Uel's suggestion about the synaptic driver?

[kge420]

 Update on the scroll wheel buttons. I uninstalled VL5.9 this past week and installed xubuntu to give it a try.The scroll buttons worked with this OS. The rest of the experience was not so good, it made my laptop unbearably slow. It was like XP all over again. I switched back to VL5.9 last night and will continue with it.