Hacker Public Radio Hacker Public Radio

Remapping Mouse Buttons with XBindKeys on Linux

After a really long time of not bothering to figure out how to do this, I finally did some research and found out how to remap the extra buttons on my Kensington Expert mouse and my Logitech marble trackball mouse in a Linux environment. The tools it needed were xvkbd, xdotool, and xbindkeys. I already had the first two installed, but had never used xbindkeys before. I also used xev to identify the button numbers and key numbers.

The Kensington Expert Mouse is one that I've had for about 15 years, and it was fairly expensive when I bought it, something like $75 or $80. It has four large buttons with a large trackball in the middle and a scroll wheel going around the track ball. I bought it at a time when I was doing a lot of graphic work that required clicking and dragging and double-clicking and stuff like that. If you're using it in a Mac or Windows environment, there is a special configuration tool that you can use to set it up just how you want. I had always configured it so that the upper left and upper right buttons were used for double-clicking and click dragging. This helped reduce a lot of strain on my hands. I have never gotten this to work on Linux, though, until today.

If you want to do this yourself, the first thing to do is make sure you have these packages installed: xvkbd, xdotool, and xbindkeys.

Then create a configuration file in your home directory:


~/.xbindkeysrc


In order to map the upper left button to "double click," and the upper right button to "click and drag," I added these lines to the configuration file:


# Double-click assigned to button 2 (upper left)

"xdotool sleep 0.2 click 1 ; xdotool click 1"
b:2

# Click and Drag assigned to button 8 (upper right)

"xdotool sleep 0.2 mousedown 1"
b:8


To test the settings, simply kill the xbindkeys process and restart it by typing xbindkeys:


user@hostname:~$ pkill -f xbindkeys
user@hostname:~$ xbindkeys



On my desktop computer I have a Logitech marble trackball mouse, and it has two small keys that are assigned to back and forward by default. This can be handy for navigating file managers and web pages, but I wanted them to be assigned to "page up" and "page down" (to make up for the lack of a scroll wheel on the mouse). Here is the configuration file for that machine:


"xvkbd -text "[Page_Down]""
b:8

"xvkbd -text "[Page_Up]""
b:9


I suppose I could have used xdotool for this configuration file as well, but for reasons I can't remember now, I tried xvkbd first and it worked, so I did not experiment further. I used xdotool for the Kensington because xvkbd did not have a way to perform virtual mouse clicks.


Links


xev
XBindKeys
xvkbd
xdotool

nop redux
This is the updated code
-logicprobe
marker -logicprobe

variable Compare
variable Count

$23 constant PINB
$24 constant DDRB
$25 constant PORTB

$100 constant PINH
$101 constant DDRH
$102 constant PORTH

$a0 constant TCCR4A
$a1 constant TCCR4B
$a8 constant OCR4A

$b0 constant TCCR2A
$b1 constant TCCR2B
$b3 constant OCR2A

$2c constant PINE
$2d constant DDRE
$2e constant PORTE

$6a constant EICRB
$3d constant EIMSK

: ext4.irq ( -- ) Count @ 1+ Count ! ;i

: logicprobe.init ( -- )
tone generatoed through timer2
%0001.0000 DDRB mset d10, pb4
%0100.0010 TCCR2A c! use OC2A, ctc mode
$ff OCR2A c! compare falue

%0 DDRE c! e input
%0000.0010 EICRB mset falling edge
['] ext4.irq #6 int! attach interrupt
;

helper words
: open.gate ( -- ) 0 Count ! %0001.0000 EIMSK mset ;
: close.gate ( -- ) %0001.0000 EIMSK mclr ;

tone stuff
: high.tone ( -- ) %0000.0100 TCCR2B c! 750 ms 0 TCCR2B c! ;
: low.tone ( -- ) %0000.0110 TCCR2B c! 750 ms 0 TCCR2B c! ;
: alt.tone ( -- )
3 for
%0000.0100 TCCR2B c! 150 ms 0 TCCR2B c!
150 ms
%0000.0110 TCCR2B c! 150 ms 0 TCCR2B c!
150 ms
next
;

: process.data ( -- )
Count @ 1-
Count !
Count @ 0 > if
cr ." freq=" 10 * .
cr ." pulse"
alt.tone sound output
else
%0001.0000 PINE mtst if
cr ." high"
high.tone sound output
else
cr ." low"
low.tone sound output
then then
;

: wait 100 ms ;

: sample ( -- ) open.gate wait close.gate process.data ;

words called at the forth command line to do the test

demo tones

low.tone
high.tone
alt.tone

the test

sample a stop clocked
start.clock
sample

a0 line

sample

stop.clock and sample a0

stop.clock
sample

reset the z80 and single step probing the m1 signal

reset
step
step
step
step
step
step
run
step sample
step sample
step sample
step sample
sample
if its jammed hit it, if it breaks it needed replacing anyway

The Oh No! news.
Oh No! News is Good News.


firewalltimes:
Recent Data Breaches – 2023.

sec:
On January 5, 2023, - T-Mobile Discloses Data Breach Affecting 37
Million Customers.
On January 5, 2023, T-Mobile US, Inc. identified that a bad actor
was obtaining data through a single Application Programming Interface
(“API”) without authorization.

bleepingcomputer:
TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate confirm data breach affecting 20M
customers.

instantcheckmate:
2019 Account List Data Security Incident.
truthfinder:
2019 Account List Data Security Incident.
"We learned recently that a list, including name, email, telephone
number in some instances, as well as securely encrypted passwords and
expired and inactive password reset tokens, of Instant Checkmate
subscribers was being discussed and made available in an online forum.
We have confirmed that the list was created several years ago and
appears to include all customer accounts created between 2011 and 2019.
The published list originated inside our company."

sec:
SEC Charges NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce for Unlawfully Touting and
Making Misleading Statements about Crypto Security.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges
against former NBA player Paul Pierce for touting EMAX tokens, crypto
asset securities offered and sold by EthereumMax, on social media
without disclosing the payment he received for the promotion and for
making false and misleading promotional statements about the same crypto
asset. Pierce agreed to settle the charges and pay $1.409 million in
penalties, disgorgement, and interest.

sec:
SEC Charges Terraform and CEO Do Kwon with Defrauding Investors in
Crypto Schemes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Singapore-based
Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon with orchestrating a
multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an
algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.

discourse.ubuntu:
Ubuntu Flavor Packaging Defaults.

To maintain this focus while also providing user choice, Ubuntu and
its flavors consider debs and snaps the default experience. Users have
the freedom of choice to get their software from other sources,
including Flatpak. A way to install these alternatives is, and will
continue to be, available for installation from the Ubuntu archive with
a simple command.




References (APA format).

Heiligenstein,
M. X. (2023, January 27). Recent Data Breaches - 2023.
Firewalltimes. https://firewalltimes.com/recent-data-breaches/
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (2023, January 19). Form 8-K
[T-Moble data breach]. SEC. https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001283699/000119312523010949/d641142d8k.htm
Abrams, L. (2023, February 3) TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate confirm
d

HR000000000
H Hybrid: Denotes some prepurchased or hard to find components
R Robotics: suitable for robots
buy: 4s 40A BMS
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000025857655.html
(can't specifically vouch for this vendor, just chose the first that
came up)
make sure to choose 4s and balance

find or buy materials: duct or gorilla tape, trashed computer dvd
or cd drive, 20 18650 cells, molex connectors(you can also use barrel
jacks or whatever you want to transfer power), wire and maybe 'tab wire'
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32650006768.html
solder everything together as per schematic and pictures (there
is theoretically a danger in soldering cells, but I have never had a
problem. Have a pair of pliers and a nearby window handy to throw them
out of if anything goes wrong)
wrap in cardboard and tape as per pictures
add the cd/dvd drive lids(if you taped well you won't short
anything and burn your house down
tape dvd lids to battery

Getting into the battery for maintenance just requires a utility
knife.
Watt Hour does a great job describing the 3s BMS, which is very
similar to the 4s used in my case: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=QNENyu97w2A
Battery Schematic
Click the
thumbnail to see the full-sized image
Cut through tape to reveal battery

Click the thumbnail to see the full-sized
image
Flat metal holds cells together

Click the thumbnail to see the full-sized
image
Detail of 4.2v
Click the thumbnail
to see the full-sized image
Only have to desolder one side
Click
the thumbnail to see the full-sized image
New cells in
Click the thumbnail to
see the full-sized image
Make sure there is thick tape covering battery

In the early days of computing, the computing power was kept in centralized large mainframes and users would connect to them via so called "dumb" terminals. These often provided their output through a printer and continuous feed of paper. However in 1964 UNIVAC introduced the Uniscope 300, which was one of the first terminals to provide a video monitor for display. With the introduction of this system came the introduction of several concepts that we take for granted today and they are described during the reading of this brochure.

The brochure was made available through the Computer History Museum at https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102646317

As I mention in the episode, $15,000 USD in 1964 is worth considerably more today, according to an online inflation calculator it is now worth approximately $144,000 today. So even if that was for 48 terminals as it seems to mention in the hand written note, that might equate to about $3000 per terminal in 2023 dollars.

Here are some related links below:


UNIVAC - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC

The Uniscope line - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniscope

Uniscope terminal multiplexer service manual - https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102784700

Episode #3

wikipedia:
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.
wikipedia:
Lactose intolerance is a common condition caused by a decreased ability
to digest lactose, a sugar found in dairy products.
uncyclopedia:
A tree hugging hippy is a hippy who hugs trees often found in Bezerkley,
California. Many people think that there is much more to say about tree
hugging hippies than just the fact that they hug trees, but reality is,
that there is not really very much more to say about tree hugging
hippies than that they hug trees.
merriam-webster:
A vegetarian is a person who does not eat meat : someone whose diet
consists wholly of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, and sometimes eggs
or dairy products.
merriam-webster:
A vegan is a strict vegetarian who consumes no food (such as meat, eggs,
or dairy products) that comes from animals.
wikipedia:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of
the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and
equality before the law. Liberals espouse various views depending on
their understanding of these principles.
wikipedia:
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks
to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and
values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the
culture and civilization in which it appears.
ssa: Social Security is
committed to helping maintain the basic well-being and protection of the
people we serve. We pay benefits to about 64 million people including
retirees, children, widows, and widowers. From birth, to marriage, and
into retirement, we are there to provide support throughout life's
journey.
wikipedia:
In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water, with an
accompanying disruption of metabolic processes. It occurs when free
water loss exceeds free water intake, usually due to exercise, disease,
or high environmental temperature. Mild dehydration can also be caused
by immersion diuresis, which may increase risk of decompression sickness
in divers.
wikipedia:
An emergency medical technician (EMT), also known as an ambulance
technician, is a health professional that provides emergency medical
services. EMTs are most commonly found working in ambulances. In
English-speaking countries, paramedics are a separate profession that
has additional educational requirements, qualifications, and scope of
practice.
wikipedia:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral
disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such
as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic
violence, or other threats on a person's life.
anxiety:
Anxiety is the mind and body's reaction to stressful, dangerous, or
unfamiliar situations. It's the sense of uneasiness, distress, or dread
you feel before a significant event.
alcoholism:
Alcoholism is a condition that develops over time as someone continues
to abuse alcohol. The result of alcoholism is the inability to control
the urge to drink alcohol.