Linux on PowerPC FAQ-O-Matic : X Windows :
How can I get three mouse buttons under X?
If typing Option-2 and Option-3 for the middle and right mouse buttons respectively annoys you (these are the defaults, and yes I hate them), you can use xmodmap to change this. Edit your startx file to have the following line: serverargs="-nooptionmouse -middlekey 128 -rightkey 130" Your middle and right mouse buttons will be mapped to F1 and F2, respectively. Do "man xmodmap" for more details. -- Dan Caugherty (caffeine1@mindspring.com)caffeine1@mindspring.com
If you want to use the standard Apple one-button mouse, you can use Option-2 (hold down Option and type 2 on the keyboard) to emulate the middle button, and Option-3 to emulate the right button. Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@gnu.org>slipcon@cs.jhu.edu, jonh@cs.dartmouth.edu, gord@gnu.org
How do I use all three buttons of my three button mouse in X? (MkLinux)or
How do I use all three buttons of my three button mouse in X? (Linux-pmac)
jonh@cs.dartmouth.edu
In kde, this works for me: option + click = middle button control + option + click = right buttonjason@roasted.org
ron@opus1.com
--Mike
gertz@mcs.anl.gov
clear mod2
Then, you can use either
option-2 or left-option click for mouse2 and option-3 or right-option click for mouse3
bmonsen@cisco.com
production@scmp.co.uk
If you've already installed and configured everything, you may need to re-run Xconfigurator, mouseconfig, or another tool, or edit /etc/X11/XF86Config or another file, to turn on multi-button mouse support. Or you could just reinstall, if you're a real newbie.
If your Mac has a PS/2 mouse port (e.g., Motorola StarMax) or USB mouse port (e.g., G4), use it. You can buy mice made for PCs for next to nothing, and they work. (Don't worry if the box says "Windows 95 or better"--your have something _much_ better.) Of course the $5 mice don't always last too long, so you might want to consider either spending $30 for something from a decent brand like Logitech, or buying a couple of mice so you can still work when the first one dies.
With a PS/2 mouse, as long as you have nothing plugged into your ADB chain, the PS/2 mouse shows up as an ADB mouse, and everything is fine.
USB requires kernel support. If you have an older kernel, you'll have to upgrade or patch and recompile.
Old-style PC busmice and serial mice can be run through an PS/2 adapter, if you happen to have them lying around. But a PS/2 adapter costs almost as much as a PS/2 mouse.
If you're ADB-only (most Macs before the iMac) it's a little more expensive, and harder to find. Also, there are some ADB mice (MouseSystems models, for example) that don't follow the Apple extended ADB protocol and will be useless. Everything from Kensington works; I don't know about other brands. I personally love their Thinking Mouse, but even after a few years, the weird button layout sometimes throws me (the "middle" button is on the right, the "right" button is below the "left," and there's a useless extra button).
You may want to look at a wheel mouse instead of a plain-old 3-button mouse. They're even easier to find (and maybe cheaper) nowadays, and you can get the wheel to scroll for you. On the other hand, clicking the roller doesn't feel quite the same as clicking a button.
If you get a "stick" mouse, or other mouse that scrolls in both the X and Y directions, it may not be as useful. My experience is only with one brand (IBM), on a PC running an earlier version of XFree86, but I could never get the horizontal scrolling to work (XF86 doesn't understand more than 5 buttons very well).
andi@payn.net
Ron Thompson SQA Engineer Apple Computer, Inc.
rthompson@apple.com
spanskikh@sectorbase.com
jason@sbl.salk.edu
mypalmike@hotmail.com
I scoured the net a bit, and discovered that newer kernels -- starting with 2.2.16 (at least in the SuSE tree, since that's the one installed with 7.0) or later -- use a new input layer, which is tied to USB support. To make a long story short, the PPC kernel needs to support USB and HID (details at http://home.munich.netsurf.de/Franz.Sirl/inputppc.html). The reason why the SuSE instructions weren't working for me is that I was trying to be efficient when I first compiled my 2.2.18 kernel: I don't have USB in my machine, and so I had removed support for it when I configured that kernel. So, I re-did my .config to include USB and HID support, recompiled, rebooted, and now my mouse button emulation works. I suspect anyone using a pre-compiled recent kernel have this feature built in, so these instructions should work for you right away (check for the existence of the directory /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/ -- if it's there, your kernel should have this feature).
The instructions -- from the above URL -- are to enter, as root:
echo "1" > /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation
This will enable mouse button emulation, which defaults to having the right control key emulating the 2nd mouse button and the right option key emulating the 3rd mouse button. Echoing other values into /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode (for the middle mouse button) and /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode (for the right mouse button) will change the keys used for button emulation. For a full list of keycodes, see the header file at http://homepages.munich.netsurf.de/Franz.Sirl/input.h -- note that these are not the same as the older adb keycodes (i.e. those used in the adb_buttons kernel argument). The SuSE documentation -- at http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/poeml_mouse_buttons_emulation.html -- suggests 87 (F11) for the middle button, and 88 (F12) for the right button.
To make the change permanent, put the three 'echo' commands in a script run when your machine boots; in SuSE, they can be put at the end of /sbin/init.d/boot.local .
ozon_m@hotmail.com
I am running linuxppc-haloween (obtained first week of January from my local linux mirror. I am running kernel 2.2.18-4hpmac which came pre-packaged. I am running on an iMac (slot loading) with a USB keyboard and one-button hockey puck mouse. Another way to enter the keycodes ozon_m@hotmail.com mentioned is to add them to the sysctl.conf file as follows: dev.mac_hid.mouse_button2_keycode=125 dev.mac_hid.mouse_button3_keycode=126 125 and 126 are the keycodes of the buttons that I use; they are the [left-open-apple] and [right-open-apple] buttons on my keyboard. TO DETERMINE KEYCODES for your favorite keys: To switch from an X console to a text console on a linuxppc machine, hit [left-control]-[left-alt]-[left-open-apple]-[F1]. This brings you to a text console. The command showkey --keycode will tell you the codes that you are typing when you hit a key. Hitting the [left-open-apple] key brings you back to the X server. (NOTE: if you re-map the [left-open-apple] key as I did above, then this method will no longer work to get back from the text console. You'll need to kill the X server to get back to a login prompt.) You can use this method to find the keycodes of the keys you want to use as button-2 and button-3. WARNING: On my machine at least, these keycodes are DIFFERENT than those found using xmodmap. The numbers from xmodmap will not work.crsteffe@indiana.edu
The buttons are emulated in the adb driver. There is--if your system is new enough--a directory called /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid which contains control information. On my system it contains five files:
keyboard_lock_keycodes keyboard_sends_linux_keycodes mouse_button2_keycode mouse_button3_keycode mouse_button_emulationTo activate the emulation, add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf:
dev.mac_hid.mouse_button_emulation = 1The key codes are defined in /usr/include/linux/input.h; I believe they can be changed with more lines in /etc/sysctl.conf.
In my Debian "potato" system, the right-hand control key operates as mouse button two and the right-hand option (or alt) key operates as mouse button three.
randolph@panix.com
colin@colino.net
Can I use a Dvorak keyboard with X Windows?