Member Avatar for Dortz

I'm running kubuntu 5.04, and I am having lots of trouble setting my scroll wheel to work. specifically, in Konqueror or other web browsers.

The mouse is a standard, two button and scroll wheel mouse. the applicable portion of my xorg.conf file follows:

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "Mouse1"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option "Protocol"    "Auto"
    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"

every time i try to edit this, or add one of the suggested lines, x crashes... can someone please save me from ripping even more of my hair out?

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Brief, practical checklist for the wheel problem in this thread. reported a non-working wheel and X crashes when editing the config; noted that changing protocol/mapping can help. Before changing xorg.conf (which can crash X if an unsupported option is used), verify what the kernel and X actually see and prefer small, reversible edits. See the X.Org mouse driver notes for why driver choice and protocol matter: X.Org mouse driver manual. (x.org)

  1. Confirm X-level events. Run xev and roll the wheel while the little window has focus; you should see ButtonPress/Release events for wheel up/down. Use xinput to list devices and watch a device with xinput --test <id> if xev did not make things clear. These are the canonical tools for observing X input. See the xev and xinput manpages for details: xev man page, xinput man page. (manpages.debian.org)

  2. Check which driver and options X loaded. Inspect the X log to see whether the legacy "mouse" driver, evdev, or libinput is handling the device; the older mouse driver may require explicit protocol settings and is more fragile. Back up your config before edits and prefer dropping a small snippet into xorg.conf.d rather than editing the whole file. A quick log check is useful: 

grep -i -E 'mouse|evdev|libinput' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

Refer to the X.Org docs for driver behavior. (x.org)

  1. Workarounds and next steps. If the kernel/X do not emit wheel events, test with evtest/evemu-record (kernel-level debugging). If X sees events but apps still do not scroll, imwheel can intercept and translate wheel events for applications as a practical fix. Installation and usage guidance are in the Ubuntu many-buttons howto and the imwheel manpage: ManyButtonsMouseHowto, imwheel manpage. (help.ubuntu.com)

Notes: make one change at a time, keep backups, and test with xev/xinput after each change so you can quickly revert any edit that breaks X.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for frrossk

What suggested lines are you trying to add? On my slack box, I have in xorg.conf the next lines:

Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Options "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

and it works perfectly.

Member Avatar for Dortz

I had those exact last two lines, only the problem i had (when i crashed X for the HUNDRETH TIME! milestone crash!) I guess the only thing i can think of at the moment to change would be tell the protocol it's 'IMPS/2' instead of 'auto'...

Member Avatar for Dortz

yeah... i'm tryin a lot of different things here, and, for the most part, X isn't crashing anymore. i still don't have use of my mousewheel for anything yet though... Is there any place I can turn that has more in-depth documentation about xorg.conf?

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