Preston Crawford <me at prestoncrawford.com> wrote: > Does anyone here use a multi-button (as in more than 2) > mouse with Linux? The late '60s first "modern mouse" (a ball design driving perpenducular axis) had 3 buttons. In fact, the inventor was so ahead of his time, he also invented the 5-chord keyboard so you could input any keystroke without having to use the QWERTY keyboard (unless you were typing at full speed -- which you wouldn't be using the mouse at the same time). [ SIDE NOTE: Imagine if he had established the 5-chord like the 10-key numeric pad -- we wouldn't have all those varying and non-standard gamepad controllers,. ;-] The early '70s Xerox PARC Alto had 3 buttons. And early '80s X-Window system begin with and still _requires_ 3 buttons (even if you just emulate the 3rd button with 2). ;-> More recent X-Window releases have supported 5 or 7 buttons. > How well supported are they? I always scoffed in the early '90s when I plugged in a Logitech 3-button to Linux and I instantly had full 3 button support. It wasn't until Windows 98 before Microsoft started including 3 button support without having to load additional software. > I've had to get one recently for work. A 3-button mouse? You mean you've been using 2-button mice? > I was diagnosed with CTS and I now wear braces and use a > wireless Intellimouse. "Wheel" mice were easily adapted as 5-button mice. Button 2 (3rd button) is when the wheel is depressed (just like any 3-button mice). Button 3 and 4 (4th and 5th buttons) are mapped as the up/down of the secondary Y axis (secondary to the Y-axis in the ball/optical). Most modern mice have native drivers in XFree86-4/Xorg-6.7 that can read variable rate and other, more "rich" feedback. > Works great at work with Windows, but I'm unsure how much, > if any support there is for Linux. Intellimice will be recognized immediately in any modern Linux distribution. Not only for X, but for console (e.g., gpm) as well. > Anyone have experience with this? Been using 3 button mice in Linux since I started in 1993. I mapped buttons in X for a few 5 and 7 button digitizers before any wheel mice ever came out. The X-Window system has always had extremely flexible input options. Especially since X is designed for multiuser/multidevice (multiple input/output devices) on a system. -- Bryan J. Smith | Sent from Yahoo Mail mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org | (please excuse any http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ | missing headers)