I bought a Unicomp 104 Trackball keyboard, that has a trackball plus two
sets of four "mouse-equivalent" buttons built into the top right of the keyboard.

https://clickykeyboards.com/product/1993-ibm-model-m5-2-\ trackball-52g9757-05-07-93/

The above is a different model but shows the trackball buttons as they
appear on my keyboard.

The two large buttons in each set appear to serve as left and right mouse buttons. The two small buttons may be intended to page up and page down
in (some? all?) browsers but may be configurable.

Does configuring mouse buttons (and therefore trackball buttons) require
that rpm gpm be installed?

I found a thing on the Logitech Marble Mouse that I think pertains to trackball as well, but I do not have the evdev.conf file that seems to be required.

Any ideas on what I should search for or try next?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/\ Logitech_Marble_Mouse#Sample_configuration

FWIW, the trackball provides enough things I like that I do not expect to
go back to the mouse. Having both on the system with the mouse tucked
out of the way except when needed for something that mouses better is a possibility, but I would prefer to do everything with the trackball. I
am still gaining skill with the trackball, and looking for ways to make
work better...

Cheers!

jim b.

--
UNIX is not user-unfriendly, it merely expects users to be computer-
friendly.

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.7.12A (GNU/Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)

On 17.11.2019 at 20:26, Jim Beard scribbled:

Does configuring mouse buttons (and therefore trackball buttons)
require that rpm gpm be installed? =20

No, gpm is only needed if you want mouse support in character-mode
virtual consoles, and for some character-mode applications in terminal
windows =E2=80=94 not for all of them, though, because in some cases your desktop environment and X22 can forward the mouse movement to the character-mode application.


--=20
With respect,
=3D Aragorn =3D


--- MBSE BBS v1.0.7.12A (GNU/Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Strider (2:250/1@fidonet)

On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:26:38 +0000, Jim Beard wrote:

I bought a Unicomp 104 Trackball keyboard, that has a trackball plus two
sets of four "mouse-equivalent" buttons built into the top right of the keyboard.

https://clickykeyboards.com/product/1993-ibm-model-m5-2-\ trackball-52g9757-05-07-93/

The above is a different model but shows the trackball buttons as they
appear on my keyboard.

The two large buttons in each set appear to serve as left and right
mouse buttons. The two small buttons may be intended to page up and
page down in (some? all?) browsers but may be configurable.

Does configuring mouse buttons (and therefore trackball buttons) require
that rpm gpm be installed?

I found a thing on the Logitech Marble Mouse that I think pertains to trackball as well, but I do not have the evdev.conf file that seems to
be required.

Any ideas on what I should search for or try next?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/\ Logitech_Marble_Mouse#Sample_configuration

FWIW, the trackball provides enough things I like that I do not expect
to go back to the mouse. Having both on the system with the mouse
tucked out of the way except when needed for something that mouses
better is a possibility, but I would prefer to do everything with the trackball. I am still gaining skill with the trackball, and looking for
ways to make work better...

Unicomp customer support tells me the small buttons "do nothing" and
should be ignored. There is an explanation of how they came about, but
one that retrospectively makes no good sense, or so I am told.

Actually, at least one of the small buttons "does something." When
looking at a terminal window login prompt, clicking on it will move the
cursor one position to the right. I still do not know how to determine
what character(s) the small button sends that will do this.

Cheers!

jim b.

--
UNIX is not user-unfriendly, it merely expects users to be computer-
friendly.

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.7.13 (GNU/Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)