MOUSE(4)MOUSE(4)NAME
mouse - Xorg mouse input driver
SYNOPSIS
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "idevname"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "protoname"
Option "Device" "devpath"
...
EndSection
DESCRIPTION
mouse is an Xorg input driver for mice. The driver supports most
available mouse types and interfaces, though the level of support for
types of mice depends on the OS.
The mouse driver functions as a pointer input device. Multiple mice are
supported by multiple instances of this driver.
SUPPORTED HARDWARE
USB mouse
USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports are present on most modern com‐
puters. Several devices can be plugged into this bus, including
mice and keyboards. Support for USB mice is platform specific.
PS/2 mouse
The PS/2 mouse is an intelligent device and may have more than
three buttons and a wheel or a roller. The PS/2 mouse is usu‐
ally compatible with the original PS/2 mouse from IBM immedi‐
ately after power up. The PS/2 mouse with additional features
requires a specialized initialization procedure to enable these
features. Without proper initialization, it behaves as though
it were an ordinary two or three button mouse.
Serial mouse
There have been numerous serial mouse models from a number of
manufacturers. Despite the wide range of variations, there have
been relatively few protocols (data format) with which the
serial mouse talks to the host computer.
The modern serial mouse conforms to the PnP COM device specifi‐
cation so that the host computer can automatically detect the
mouse and load an appropriate driver. This driver supports this
specification and can detect popular PnP serial mouse models on
most platforms.
Bus mouse
The bus mouse connects to a dedicated interface card in an
expansion slot. Some older video cards, notably those from ATI,
and integrated I/O cards may also have a bus mouse connector.
The interface type of the mouse can be determined by looking at the
connector of the mouse. USB mice have a thin rectangular connector.
PS/2 mice are equipped with a small, round DIN 6-pin connector. Serial
mouse have a D-Sub female 9- or 25-pin connector. Bus mice have either
a D-Sub male 9-pin connector or a round DIN 9-pin connector. Some mice
come with adapters with which the connector can be converted to
another. If you are to use such an adapter, remember that the connec‐
tor at the very end of the mouse/adapter pair is what matters.
CONFIGURATION DETAILS
Depending on the X server version in use, input device options may be
set in either a xorg.conf file, an xorg.conf.d snippet or in the con‐
figuration files read by the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) daemon,
hald(1).
Please refer to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration details and for
options that can be used with all input drivers. This section only
covers configuration details specific to this driver.
The driver can auto-detect the mouse type on some platforms. On some
platforms this is limited to plug and play serial mice, and on some the
auto-detection works for any mouse that the OS's kernel driver sup‐
ports. On others, it is always necessary to specify the mouse protocol
in the config file. The README document provided with this driver con‐
tains some detailed information about this.
The following driver Options are supported:
Option "Protocol" "string"
Specify the mouse protocol. Valid protocol types include:
Auto, Microsoft, MouseSystems, MMSeries, Logitech, Mouse‐
Man, MMHitTab, GlidePoint, IntelliMouse, ThinkingMouse,
ValuMouseScroll, AceCad, PS/2, ImPS/2, ExplorerPS/2, Think‐
ingMousePS/2, MouseManPlusPS/2, GlidePointPS/2, Net‐
MousePS/2, NetScrollPS/2, BusMouse, SysMouse, WSMouse, USB,
VUID, Xqueue.
Not all protocols are supported on all platforms. The "Auto"
protocol specifies that protocol auto-detection should be
attempted. The default protocol setting is platform-specific.
Option "Device" "string"
Specifies the device through which the mouse can be accessed. A
common setting is "/dev/mouse", which is often a symbolic link
to the real device. This option is mandatory, and there is no
default setting. The server may however attempt to probe some
default devices if this option is missing.
Option "Buttons" "integer"
Specifies the number of mouse buttons. In cases where the num‐
ber of buttons cannot be auto-detected, the default value is 3.
The maximum number is 24.
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "boolean"
Enable/disable the emulation of the third (middle) mouse button
for mice which only have two physical buttons. The third button
is emulated by pressing both buttons simultaneously. Default:
on, until a press of a physical button 3 is detected.
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "integer"
Sets the timeout (in milliseconds) that the driver waits before
deciding if two buttons where pressed "simultaneously" when 3
button emulation is enabled. Default: 50.
Option "ChordMiddle" "boolean"
Enable/disable handling of mice that send left+right events when
the middle button is used. Default: off.
Option "EmulateWheel" "boolean"
Enable/disable "wheel" emulation. Wheel emulation means emulat‐
ing button press/release events when the mouse is moved while a
specific real button is pressed. Wheel button events (typically
buttons 4 and 5) are usually used for scrolling. Wheel emula‐
tion is useful for getting wheel-like behaviour with trackballs.
It can also be useful for mice with 4 or more buttons but no
wheel. See the description of the EmulateWheelButton, Emulate‐
WheelInertia, XAxisMapping, and YAxisMapping options below.
Default: off.
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "integer"
Specifies which button must be held down to enable wheel emula‐
tion mode. While this button is down, X and/or Y pointer move‐
ment will generate button press/release events as specified for
the XAxisMapping and YAxisMapping settings. If set to 0, no
button is required and any motion of the device is converted
into wheel events. Default: 4.
Option "EmulateWheelInertia" "integer"
Specifies how far (in pixels) the pointer must move to generate
button press/release events in wheel emulation mode. Default:
10.
Option "EmulateWheelTimeout" "integer"
Specifies the time in milliseconds the EmulateWheelButton must
be pressed before wheel emulation is started. If the Emulate‐
WheelButton is released before this timeout, the original button
press/release event is sent. Default: 200.
Option "XAxisMapping" "N1 N2"
Specifies which buttons are mapped to motion in the X direction
in wheel emulation mode. Button number N1 is mapped to the neg‐
ative X axis motion and button number N2 is mapped to the posi‐
tive X axis motion. Default: no mapping.
Option "YAxisMapping" "N1 N2"
Specifies which buttons are mapped to motion in the Y direction
in wheel emulation mode. Button number N1 is mapped to the neg‐
ative Y axis motion and button number N2 is mapped to the posi‐
tive Y axis motion. Default: no mapping.
Option "ZAxisMapping" "X"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "Y"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "N1 N2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "N1 N2 N3 N4"
Set the mapping for the Z axis (wheel) motion to buttons or
another axis (X or Y). Button number N1 is mapped to the nega‐
tive Z axis motion and button number N2 is mapped to the posi‐
tive Z axis motion. For mice with two wheels, four button num‐
bers can be specified, with the negative and positive motion of
the second wheel mapped respectively to buttons number N3 and
N4. Note that the protocols for mice with one and two wheels
can be different and the driver may not be able to autodetect
it. Default: "4 5".
Option "ButtonMapping" "N1 N2 [...]"
Specifies how physical mouse buttons are mapped to logical but‐
tons. Physical button 1 is mapped to logical button N1, physi‐
cal button 2 to N2, and so forth. This enables the use of phys‐
ical buttons that are obscured by ZAxisMapping.
Default: "1 2 3 8 9 10 ...".
Option "FlipXY" "boolean"
Enable/disable swapping the X and Y axes. This transformation
is applied after the InvX, InvY and AngleOffset transformations.
Default: off.
Option "InvX" "boolean"
Invert the X axis. Default: off.
Option "InvY" "boolean"
Invert the Y axis. Default: off.
Option "AngleOffset" "integer"
Specify a clockwise angular offset (in degrees) to apply to the
pointer motion. This transformation is applied before the
FlipXY, InvX and InvY transformations. Default: 0.
Option "SampleRate" "integer"
Sets the number of motion/button events the mouse sends per sec‐
ond. Setting this is only supported for some mice, including
some Logitech mice and some PS/2 mice on some platforms.
Default: whatever the mouse is already set to.
Option "Resolution" "integer"
Sets the resolution of the device in counts per inch. Setting
this is only supported for some mice, including some PS/2 mice
on some platforms. Default: whatever the mouse is already set
to.
Option "Sensitivity" "float"
Mouse movements are multiplied by this float before being pro‐
cessed. Use this mechanism to slow down high resolution mice.
Because values bigger than 1.0 will result in not all pixels on
the screen being accessible, you should better use mouse accel‐
eration (see man xset) for speeding up low resolution mice.
Default: 1.0
Option "DragLockButtons" "L1 B2 L3 B4"
Sets "drag lock buttons" that simulate holding a button down, so
that low dexterity people do not have to hold a button down at
the same time they move a mouse cursor. Button numbers occur in
pairs, with the lock button number occurring first, followed by
the button number that is the target of the lock button.
Option "DragLockButtons" "M1"
Sets a "master drag lock button" that acts as a "Meta Key" indi‐
cating that the next button pressed is to be "drag locked".
Option "ClearDTR" "boolean"
Enable/disable clearing the DTR line on the serial port used by
the mouse. Some dual-protocol mice require the DTR line to be
cleared to operate in the non-default protocol. This option is
for serial mice only and is handled by the X server. Default:
off.
Option "ClearRTS" "boolean"
Enable/disable clearing the RTS line on the serial port used by
the mouse. Some dual-protocol mice require the RTS line to be
cleared to operate in the non-default protocol. This option is
for serial mice only and is handled by the X server. Default:
off.
Option "BaudRate" "integer"
Set the baud rate to use for communicating with a serial mouse.
This option should rarely be required because the default is
correct for almost all situations. Valid values include: 300,
1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200. Default: 1200.
There are some other options that may be used to control various param‐
eters for serial port communication, but they are not documented here
because the driver sets them correctly for each mouse protocol type.
SEE ALSOXorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7), README.mouse.
hal(7), hald(8), fdi(5).
X Version 11 xf86-input-mouse 1.7.2 MOUSE(4)
