Using the Gyration Media Center Remote with Linux

The good news is that it should work out of the box, if your system is properly configured. When my system was improperly configured, the keyboard worked properly but the mouse had the horizontal axis appearing as vertical, no horizontal movement, and the buttons caused odd cursor movements.

Make sure the usbmouse and usbkbd modules are not loaded. These drivers are obsolete, and should not be used. Instead, use usbhid. That driver understands HID (human interface device) descriptor data sent by the mouse and configures itself properly

Configure X to use /dev/input/mice as its input device, and set the protocol to "ImPS/2". Then, you should be able to use the wired keyboard and mouse and the Gyration ones together.

Using All Of Those Buttons

Once you've got the basic mouse functions running, it's time to make the buttons work. Install xbindkeys, xbindkeys-config, and xvkbd. On Debian, you can just use apt-get and the packages have the same names as the programs. I haven't tested Red Hat.

Run xbindkeys-config. Press the New and Get Key buttons, then press one of the function buttons on the Gyration mouse or keyboard. The event parameters will be filled in for you, and then you can fill in a command that will be run when you press that button. When you've made commands for all of the buttons, use the Save command to save the file to .xbindkeysrc in your home directory. Then run xbindkeys. This will capture button presses and run the commands in your .xbindkeysrc file.

One useful command is xvkbd -xsendevent -text text-string
This simulates typing any key combination on the keyboard. Read its manual page for details.

If you generate an interesting configuration, send it to bruce at perens.com, I'll put it here for others to download.

Bruce Perens