Logitech G5 Review Under Linux
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 at 8:05 amAbout five years ago, my mouse of choice, a Radioshack re-branded trackball, with pretty good precision, two wheels, and half a billion buttons, died. Just flat out quit working. So, I didn’t feel like tracking down a new replacement mouse, so I bought a $5 Compaq optical midnight special, so I can go buy a better mouse later on.
This temporary mouse, originally bought for my Pentium 133, ends up being plugged into my new workstation, the Pentium 3 550. So, you know, the mouse still works, might as well keep using it, right? It’s got two buttons, and a clickable wheel, and it doesn’t suck, right? Wrong.
I finally gut my computer, and put a Sempron 2600+ in it, and did so about 9 months ago. This mouse is still around, and whoever built the mouse (it wasn’t Compaq, they don’t actually build hardware), they did a pretty decent job.
About the time I upgraded my computer, I started playing the classic Quakeworld, the father of all online multiplayer first person shooters, again. And I kept playing, and playing, and playing, and I notice that the sensitivity on my mouse is so bad, I can’t even aim the lightning gun properly… so one day, I got tired of it.
A week ago, I decided to finally order a new mouse, and I chose the Logitech G5. I went from a crappy, old, 200 DPI, three button with wheel mouse to a 2000 DPI, four button with tiltable wheel.
This mouse, my loyal readers, is a monster. It is a God among mice. It is the Cadillac of input devices.
And now on to the review
The Logitech G5 is the next generation flagship product of their gaming mouse line. Here’s what it can do:
- A high resolution sensor (measuring 30×30 pixels) rated at a sensitivity of 2000 DPI allows maximum precision with the included ability to change the DPI (between 2000, 800, and 400) on the fly, using two buttons located below the wheel, without needing to install the included driver.
- The ability to change precision on the fly without needing a driver allows you to do so on literally any platform that supports USB mice, including Linux and OSX.
- The G5 can poll the sensor at 500 times a second on any platform that supports it (such as Windows 2000/XP or Linux) providing increased precision and lower input lag.
- The G5 also uses an expanded protocol allowing higher precision output (16-bit, vs what most mice use, 8-bit or 12-bit). This allows you to use 2000 DPI mode, and move the mouse very fast without precision loss.
- Four buttons, one smooth scrolling wheel, and Logitech’s “TiltWheel” functionality, allowing you to press the wheel left and right to do application specific functions.
- Braided fiber wire covering, to reduce wear and tear on the USB cable.
- A weight cartridge, allowing you to weight your mouse however you want.
- Last, but not least, very smooth feet, allowing the mouse to move smoothly, even if you load the weight cartridge with all 36 grams of weight.
Now, first, I want to actually get to the feet. This is probably the best feature of the mouse. Sure, current and upcoming gaming mice will have 2000 or higher DPI, but these feet, even with all 36 grams loaded into the weight cartridge, glide smoother than any mouse I’ve ever used. This impresses me very much. To put this in perspective, three alkaline AA batteries, or two rechargable AA batteries weigh about 36 grams; that is very heavy.
Now, onto the more important stuff: I earlier mentioned that I couldn’t use Quakeworld’s lightning gun precise enough to be much use due to my mouse. Well, now, with 2000 DPI at my command, I can precision hit fast moving targets at long distances with ease.
Not impressed enough? The lightning gun in Quakeworld requires more precision than any hitscan weapon in any game ever. You thought the Quake3 lightning gun was hard? QW’s is even worse.
Another neat feature is the tilt wheel. You can press the wheel left and right, and generate input events. In Firefox, I can tilt the wheel left, and it goes back in my history; tilting the wheel right goes forward in my history. Other applications can be configured to do other things.
How to get it to work in Linux
As a USB HID device, it already works in Linux; however, to get the full use out of the mouse (such as being able to use the tilt function correctly) edit your/etc/X11/xorg.conf‘s InputDevice section for your mouse to say:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "evdev"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Name" "Logitech USB Gaming Mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
EndSection
… which should allow you to use the fourth/thumb button, and the tilt function correctly. Buttons one through three and the wheel already corectly work without this. Also, on Ubuntu, make sure xserver-xorg-input-evdev is installed, as it is not installed by default.
Update: In newer versions of X, the above code doesn’t entirely work. Run cat /proc/bus/input/devices and look for the device named Logitech USB Gaming Mouse. It will list a line under it called Handlers, look at which event it uses (for me, this is event6). Add a line in the above xorg.conf lines below Name, as such: Option "Device" "/dev/input/eventn" where n is the number of the event.
Also, in some versions of X, tilt left and tilt right may be backwards. To fix this, create a file called ~/.Xmodmap and put in it:
pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 7 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
and run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap to update your map. On logging in again, Gnome will ask if you want to load this file: click on the file, click “Load”, and click “Ok”.
See chuck’s comments on May 1st 2008 (on page 5) below, newer X’s require that config.
Summary
Compared to all the mice I’ve used in all my years of computing, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier with a mouse. Actually, I didn’t even know it was possible to be happy with a mouse. Most people overlook the importance of a mouse in both gaming and other environments, and now that I have this mouse, I don’t think I can ever go back to ‘normal’ mouse. The only way they could possibly improve this is tighten up the wheel a little bit as to make clicking the middle button and not accidently scrolling a little easier.
Note: I have not reviewed the included drivers or software, as I don’t game in Windows.
Score: 9 out of 10.
Ok.. im currently using Chucks solution for the tilt-wheel – and yes the button mapping has changed as u see above in his post… but now the thumb-button doesnt work, if i change it back to your one, tilt-wheel doesnt work… Bugga
Well i’ve tried changing it etc.. and re-logging in – and xmodmap doesn’t come up… tried a reboot, same thing… so i couldnt change xmodmap if i wanted to apparently now
Thats controlled by .Xmodmap, Nikta. So unless the button ordering changed, mine should still remap middle click to thumb button.
Oh wait… seems i was too hasty… tilt works like it used too.. but now my single thumb-button doesnt open links in a new tab anymore..
rats..!!
CHUCK !!! YOUR AWESOME !!! for months i’ve been without.. and u pop along and fix it in mere minutes… kudos to u.. !!! THANKS!
i want to add: change your .Xmodmap to
pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 9 8 6 7
nikita try this
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Logitech G5″
Driver “evdev”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/by-id/usb-Logitech_USB_Gaming_Mouse-event-mouse”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “invert”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “false”
Option “Buttons” “9″
Option “Resolution” “800″
EndSection
Doesnt really matter to me if this blog goes down now.. G5 is utterly useless in Linux to me now.. no-body has bee able to post a solution anywhere for the tilt-wheel problem… Bugga
If this blog ever goes down, I will be screwed. Its my blog!
if this blog ever goes down, i will be screwed. ive used this guide many time when reinstalling.
great job!
No. I wonder if anyone out there does have the solution…
Thought i might ask if you’ve found a solution to pot#36 – The X problem with the tilt-wheels yet..??
Worked like a charm. Thanks for this information!
I’m not sure. Ever since Ubuntu upgraded their X to a newer version, I haven’t figured out how to get things to work properly.
Great Guide, used it before with fiesty, worked a charm. Now running Hardy Heron
Cant get the
tilt left = back
tilt right = forward
What do i have to do to get it to work..?
It actually is being recognized, but for a different purpose.
Historically, in X, middle click means paste, and it pastes whatever text you have selected. It works in any GTK or Qt app as well.
This middle click clipboard is also separate from the one you use control-C/control-V with.
Eh, it’s just a habit of mine. I use it for really long pages or (even moreso) when I need to scroll horizontally (like if i’m viewing a large image). I also use the middle click for other tasks, none of which work in Ubuntu. I can also tilt the mouse wheel left or right in Windows to scroll horizontally but in Ubuntu, the tilt for some reason registers “forward” and “back” in my browser, which is very annoying for me. The main reason it bothers me so much is because it’s not what I’m used to (and my laptop is dualbooted, I still use Windows often).
I guess the main problem I’m having is that the Mouse Wheel button (or “middle click”) simply isn’t being recognized at all — I know I picked a fairly trivial function of it to ask about originally.
This is Windows feature, and a badly thought out one.
As such, X wouldn’t be the place to enable it, it would be up to KDE or Gnome to supply a feature, and as I said, since it is a badly thought out feature, neither of them have it.
Why don’t you just use the scroll wheel like it was intended?
I’ve got a question.
This doesn’t seem to configure the mouse correctly. In Windows, I can press the Mouse Wheel down as a button, which will (if i’m in a Browser Window) turn on a little arrow icon which lets me scroll the page by simply moving my mouse above or below the icon. This doesn’t work with the instructions you listed in your post. What do I need to change in the xorg.conf file to allow this functionality? Thanks.
Yeah, this may not work on newer versions of X due to the fact that on new installations, Xorg.conf is no longer created, and there have been changes to how evdev works.
I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to fix this yet.
Just wanted to say that I tried your method to get the extra buttons to work and Ubuntu kept failing to boot correctly. I checked to make sure I had evdev installed already before I applied the changes. Luckily I know how to navigate Linux through the command prompt and was able to change the xconf.conf back (made a backup before I made the changes). Now it boots again. Maybe it works for some, but it doesn’t for all. Some may not be as lucky as me though and don’t know how to fix the file.
For G5 2007 edition (9 buttons)
xorg.conf
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “G5″
Driver “evdev”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Name” “Logitech USB Gaming Mouse”
Option “Buttons” “9″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5 6 7″
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “false”
EndSection
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “G5″
EndSection
Mouse mapping:
run: xmodmap -e “pointer = 1 2 3 4 5 8 9 6 7″
Yup, you want
xev.EDIT: i found it, you can use xev to test input events, now up to find which mouse button is mapped to which function in firefox.
Thx for your explanation. Is there some tool/program that i can use that shows me when i click a mouse button, which mouse button number is attached to it, so I can do the mapping without having to guess? (i did some googling without success)