Need suggestion for compatible ambidexterous mouse

[geobeck 0]

I've been having problems with arm stiffness recently, and I need a recommendation for a good Linux-compatible mouse that I can operate with either hand. I prefer a trackball or touchpad to a conventional mouse because of restricted desk space.

 

I've tried a Logitech Marble Mouse, which is great for basic mouse operations, but cannot scroll in Linux, and a Cirque Smart Cat touch pad, which is the best Windows solution I've found, but also unable to perform more than basic mouse functions in Linux.

 

To summarize, I need a non-conventional mouse that is not ergonomically shaped to fit your right hand, and is capable of advanced scrolling, zooming, etc. in Linux. (Specifically Mandrake 9.1)

 

Thanks in advance for any recommendations anyone might have.

[egorgry 0]

I have a logitech scoll mouse with MDK 9.1 and it works great.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Pretty much any mouse with any number of buttons can be made to work with Linux if you're prepared to do some config file editing. I suggest you go and try each of your options and see which one you're most comfortable with before coming back and asking us how to make all the buttons work

[geobeck 0]

Sounds good. I'lve decided to keep the Logitech Marble Mouse. It's about the only ambidexterous mouse alternative I've been able to find (except for a couple of touch pads available over the Net, but I like to buy locally if I can).

 

I'll try and locate my mouse config files, crack them open, and see what i can figure out.

[Admiral LSD 0]

For X, the mouse configuration is located in the XF86Config file. Here's what mine looks like for my MS Intellimouse Explorer:

 

Code:

Section "InputDevice"# Identifier and driver    Identifier	"Mouse1"    Driver "mouse"    Option "Protocol"    "ExplorerPS/2"    Option "Device"      "/dev/mouse"    Option "Buttons"	 "7"    Option "ZAxisMapping""6 7"EndSection

 

(Theres a fair bit of other stuff in there relating to the mouse but much of that's commented and not only that but pretty much irrelevent as well)

 

The setting for your Logitech probably and most likely are quite different so I suggest doing some Googling to find out the appropriate settings. The other thing I use for my Explorer is a little program called imwheel to allow me to use my two thumb buttons. To make that work (assuming it's installed rpm -qa | grep imwheel in a terminal as root will quickly verify if it has or not, if the command produces output then it's installed) I add the following to lines to my /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file:

 

Code:

imwheel -k -p -b "67" &xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5" &

 

Againg, the correct settings may be a little different for your Logitech so I recommend again turning to Google for a second opinion before trying my examples.

[geobeck 0]

Thanks. That will narrow down my search quite a bit!

[Admiral LSD 0]

The other place to edit mouse related info is with gpm, the console mouse driver, but if you don't use this already you probably won't want to (it doesn't play nice with modern graphics cards) so it's not worrying about.