Peter Cooper

How To Enable Mouse Wheel Scrolling in Ubuntu Hardy on VMware Fusion

I was having problems installing VMware Tools on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) under VMware Fusion but got to the bottom of it.

The next problem was trying to get the mouse scroll wheel to work. I did some Googling and most of the guides suggested I change a single line in xorg.conf (namely, set the “Protocol” of the mouse device to “ImPS/2″). It didn’t work. On a limb I thought I’d try changing the driver from “vmmouse” to “mouse” and this solved the problem, but the mouse tracking and acceleration was TOTALLY different between OS X and Linux.. eugh!

With some perseverance, I’ve found a solution. You can use the vmmouse driver, keep the synchronized mouse tracking and acceleration, and use your mouse wheel as it was intended.

I have been told this technique works on VMware Workstation and VMware Player on the PC too, but I haven’t tried it on there myself.

Steps to Enable Mouse Wheel Scrolling in Ubuntu Hardy under VMware Fusion

Launch a Terminal (Applications menu -> Accessories -> Terminal).

Type:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down (it’s not far, perhaps 20 - 30 lines) till you see a block that looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "vmmouse"
[.. blah blah blah ..]
EndSection

Replace that whole section with this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "vmmouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Save the file, then close all your apps and hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. X restarts within a few seconds, and you’re back up and running. Scrolling should now be possible!

I haven’t gotten to the bottom of horizontal scrolling yet. I thought a ZAxisMapping of “4 5 11 12″ would do it, but I suspect either VMware Fusion’s mouse driver does things a different way, or maybe it’s mouse specific (not likely). I’ll update this post if I work it out.

This also works with VMWare Workstation 6.x. Thanks.

Works for me too, and I’m using VMWare Player on Windows XP.

Thanks a lot for the tip.

/Hubba

Thank you very much for this. It worked great.

Disabled my mouse entirely and can’t mouse into my Ubuntu virtual machine at all now.

Any ideas?

Actually, Peter, thanks to Time Machine I was able to recover a recent version of the Ubuntu VM and try again.

My xconf.org file looks different. I found that c&ping the section but changing “vmmouse” to simply “mouse” seems to work.

I don’t know why, but I have scrolling.

Les

If that works for you, that’s great I suspect VMware Fusion might not be virtualizing our mice as much as I initially thought. So it might be different techniques for different types of mice. I don’t use a Mighty Mouse, so that might be why.

Using “mouse” seems to more generally work with everything, but for some reason the acceleration and other characteristics of the mouse pointer seem to change significantly within the VM compared to OS X. With “vmmouse” I get the same “feel” both in and out of the VM.

So, did you get horizontal scrolling (HS)? I have a MBP and use touchpad for everything. I’ve trying to setup HS for my Ubuntu under vmware fusion via synaptics, but without success.
Keep the nice work.
Alan

Alan: No. While I use horizontal scrolling in OS X, my Linux use is casual enough to not require it.. especially as I mostly use in on OS X for file browsing, and the file browsers I use on Linux don’t work in columns!

That said, I know it has and can be done. I attempted to do it with a slightly adjusted ZAxisMapping but didn’t get a result with my particular mouse. It is worth investigating / Googleing ZAxisMapping as there are lots of other settings you could try.

I imagine a touchpad would yield different results to a mouse anyway, so it’s worth experimenting. It’s quick and easy to do so anyway, since a Ctrl+Alt+Backspace gets you refreshed and back up again in 10 seconds.

this works for the macbook touchpad. cheers mate!

[...] the mouse wheel was not scrolling properly.  After some searching I found the answer here.  Basically, you need to edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.  Find this following [...]

Oh dear lord, that fixed it. I was about to go crazy (Vmware server, XP).

thanks a lot for the great entries - this and the vmware tools for ubuntu 8.04 were of great help to me

That did the trick for me on VMWareServer. Thanks!

Apparantly this also works for VirtualBox.

Thanks for this post. I tried Driver with “vmmouse”, but the scroll wheel only worked sporadically. I changed it to “mouse” and now the scroll wheel works fine. However, the mouse handles a little differently, a little slower I think.

I’m running Ubuntu 8.04 in VMware Player on Windows XP.

Thanks….
its work nice

Works perfectly. Thanks!

Yep, works here on VMware, cheers

You, my friend, are a GENIUS! Thank you so much! Works like a charm on vmware player…

Ubuntu guest on Windows XP with VMware Workstation, and it works works works!!!

Thanks a lot!

[...] http://peterc.org/2008/64-how-to-enable-vertical-mouse-wheel-scrolling-in-ubuntu-hardy-on-vmware-fus... [...]

Peter, thanks for this gem. It worked like a charm.

VMWare 2.0.3
Ubuntu 8.0.4
running on Windows XP SP2

Excellent! thank you!

Sweet! Many thanks for this peter, trying to code without a scroll wheel is hell.

VMWare Player, Ubuntu Server (w/ X installed)

Thank you so much, this worked great on VMWare Player with Hardy Heron on Windows XP

Works great! Thanks so much!

thanks a lot

thank you so much. works great.

[...] running VMware Workstation 6.5 under Windows Vista. I have Ubuntu 8.04 installed. I found a tip on how to enable the mouse scroll wheel, but I found that it switched my mouse over to Ubuntu [...]

Thanks a lot man…your saved my surfing appliance.

Hi Peter,

I am installed Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop 64bit version within VMWare Workstation 6.04 and as encountered in VMWare Fusion I had the problem with the workstation edition.

After following your steps the scroll wheel funtion worked again.

Thanks.

Thanks a lot!!

You sir, are a star!

Thank you!
This worked OK for me!

Ubuntu 8 guest on Ubuntu 8 host.

Fabian

Hi,

I have an exactly same problem with this, only that I’m running Ubuntu 8.04 with VMWare Workstation 6 on Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

Straight to the point, I followed the instructions exactly, and voila. Scrolling is now working!

Thanks!

Doesn’t enable scrolling with my Dell (Synaptics) Touchpad in a Windows Vista Ultimate host with VMware Player 2.0.4.

But it does enable scrolling with an external mouse. However, the side buttons (Back, Forward), which work in Ubuntu running physically, still don’t work.

Any ideas?

it work straight away, Thanks a lot
use Ms wireless mouse & keyboard
Centos 5.0
vmware server 1.0.4
Ubuntu Hardy

Still works with VMWare Fusion 2.0 Beta 1, running Kubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04; except that instead of ‘Identifier “Configured Mouse”‘, mine reads ‘Identifier “VMWare Mouse”‘. Tests fine with the trackpad on my MacBook with the exception of horizontal scrolling. So, I expect it will work with my wheel mouse when I get back to the office tomorrow.

Thanks, mate.

Works on Mac OS X 10.5.4 - vmware fusion 1.1.3, intel iMac, ubuntu hardy heron 8.04 alternate install, scroll wheel works in firefox, etc.

Seems like vmware interferes with linux mouse wheel autodetect.

bTW: I am using a usb logitech trackball with scroll wheel, not the stock apple mighty mouse usb.

-M@

Peter,

Thanks it was very helpful.

I run Hardy as a vm under vmware workstation 5. I installed crunchy to learn python. Crunchy fires up firefox. YOur fix solved the scrolling problem. One other problem, I cannot input text into the crunchy text input boxes. Not a problem with regular web sites.

Any suggestion is appreciated.

Dev.

Awesome, works under VMWare Server too!

Thank you very much for this! Works perfectly in VMWare Desktop 6! As a Linux beginner it helped me greatly as I was sure that I could have scrollwheel in LinuxMint but when I tried Ubuntu it didn’t show up.

Thanks again!

Great job, it works on ubuntu 8.0 hmm good work, cheers

Thanks man, for this post. I was going crazy today triyng to fix the mouse arrow in ubuntu as a guest of vmware. The arrow was jumping all over when i dragged it over the vmware small menu (center up).
This attitude drives the Open Source community.

This worked absolutely perfectly. Thanks Cooper!
VMware Workstation 6 ~ Ubuntu Desktop.Hardy Heron

Thanks a lot! It worked like a charm!
Vista x64 + VMWare Workstation 6.0 + Ubuntu AMD64

worked here. using workstation 6.0.2 thank you very much

Thanks a lot!

worked for me - ubuntu 8 under vmware server on windows xp.

thanks!

That works great. Thank you very much! I’m new to Linux, so having someone ’spell it all out’ is appreciated. For the record, I’m running the free VMware Player and Debian Etch–Linux with training wheels.

Great tip, works fine!

Thank Cooper, It worked for me too.
VMwawre Workstation ACE 6.0 / xp / UbuntuStudios
(= Ubuntu 8.04 - the Hardy Heron)

Thank Cooper, It worked for me too.
VMware Workstation ACE 6.0 / xp / UbuntuStudios
(= Ubuntu 8.04 - the Hardy Heron)

Thanks! This was driving me crazy!

Crazy!

I can verify that this works like a charm on VMWare Workstation on PC. Thanks a bunch!

Woot.

Gracias.

OS X Leopard (10.5.4)
Fusion 1.1.3
Hardy with all updates (as of 7/31/08)

Thanks! IT WORKS!

Thanks……!

Thanks !

you absolutely rock.

I just finished installing ubuntu 8.0.4 and the very first thing I noticed was the scroll didnt work on my mouse. your site is the first I came across and this worked right away.

THANKS!

using the option Drive “vmmouse” resulted in some limited horizontal scroll function like 6 lines at a time and then I would have to pause. replacing “vmmouse” with “mouse” and the scroll wheel behaves as it should. Windows XP with VMware workstation 6 running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron with MS Wireless desktop Elite Keyboard and mouse NOTE: keyboard scroll function not yet working

[...] complaining.The only thing that I found not working so far is the scroll wheel of the mouse, this great tip fixed [...]

thx peter for this article it worked well but the os display in the beginning that the mouse need some thing like Assistive Technologies
i don’t know what this but the wheel now works and I’m very happy with that

Works great! I was going crazy trying to get this to work and had given up hope until I stumbled across your article. Thank you for figuring this out and sharing your discovery.

i can’t click the scroll button, any suggestions?

Thank you very much for this. It worked great.

Christoph

Thank you very much.
It’s great.

Fantastic thank you. I had tried all sorts of things to get this working and your suggestion worked straight away.

Cheers

Great, thanks.

Worked fine with OSX Leopard/VMWare 1.1.1

Thank You, Peter. This worked for me.

VMWare-Player 2.04 on Vista Ultimate SP1 32bit
Guest-OS: Ubuntu 8.04.1-JeOS with xubuntu-desktop
Logitech Cordless Lasermouse

another success, thanks!

vmfusion
macbook trackpad and mighty mouse both work

Thanks for the info.

Works a treat on my Mac Pro, VMWare Fusion 1.1.3 running Ubuntu 8.04 (64 bit) with wireless mighty mouse.

Now if only I’d found this a few days ago… Great work. It fixed the problem and worked a lot better than my method!

Worked for me on xp and hardy thanks!

Works great, thanks a lot!

worked like a charm Vista x64 host, Workstation 6

I followed the same but had to be modified a little to the following:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Mouse0”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” ”/dev/mouse”
Option “Protocol” “ImPS/2”
Option “Buttons” “5”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
EndSection

Sorry forgot to mention that it works great. Thanks for posting this