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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

I've been using Linux for 2 decades now, and cannot remember a time a mouse didn't just work. Mostly Logitech, from PS2 to USB to wireless.

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It depends. I'm always on the lookout for a better mouse for use in CAD on Linux. I've mostly settled on the Logitech Anywhere 2S, because it does "just work", but this is hardly a universal opinion. At least within my workplace.

I've found basically all mice will work if all you want is scroll and left, center, right buttons. But if you want all the extra stuff, like the various wheels and side buttons etc., and especially if you want to customize the response, which CAD people often do, then one often needs the driver.

Out of curiosty, which CAD software do you use on Linux? While I don't use CAD very often, all the software my engineer friends swear by only runs on Windows so any Linux recommendations would be appreciated.

Not OP, but I finally switched away from Fusion 360 to FreeCAD - https://www.freecadweb.org/

I'll be honest, Fusion 360 is still a lot better in a lot of ways (advanced feature set, ease of use, layout and hotkeys, etc), and if I were employed to do CAD full time, I'd still be using it (helps that the company would be buying the license).

FreeCAD is workable, though. And since I'm mostly just making parts to 3d print, it gets the job done nicely.

TinkerCAD is another option (https://www.tinkercad.com/) and it's honestly the easiest CAD tool I've ever used. But it's not really comparable to the real parametric CAD tools.

I'm an EE so most of my work, that requires a lot of mousing, is layout which involves various Cadence/MentorGraphics tools. I think most of the mechanical engineers here use NX. It's industrial grade, very expensive, and not open-source, etc. The mechanical engineers used to use windows too and moved off it a couple of years ago. No idea why.

Yeah, my CAD software, Rhino, is all that ties me to Windows.

FreeCAD?

Lately I have returned to using a gamepad with Joy2Key for browsing and productivity in Windows, something I last did in the 2000's. It's not perfect(some mouse events just don't work right through this method so I may have to try other software) but it's reminded me of what gamepads are good at relative to mice, which is - almost everything except whipping around the cursor, which isn't useful in productivity apps anyway. Precision and speed can be had by using multiple sticks and dpad, you can hold it at many angles and aren't chained to the desk, the grips have been ergonomically refined, and there's a decent selection of sticks, buttons and triggers. I wish gamepads had some wheels or dials too, but the options already there are aplenty and I am testing a few out right now.

I currently mix gamepad with a split keyboard(Freestyle 2) and a Kensington trackball as the backup mouse; having the controller in the center of the split makes it smooth to pick up and put down. And if I really needed more dedicated controls - well, why stop at one gamepad? Maybe I should try a flight stick too.

On Linux I just use xbindkeys to get the extra buttons to do something. The extra mouse buttons work out of the box with X with no drivers, they just need to be assigned to do something.

I have 2 extra mouse buttons for switching between virtual workspaces and another 2 for volume control.

https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/config-...

https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/files/x...

Gotcha... that makes sense. I've never required more than two buttons and a scroll wheel, which I guess explains that.

I've used Linux over a similar time period. I remember plenty of times when the scrollwheel wasn't mapped to anything, and I needed to stick a value for ZAxisMapping into the X configuration. At this point, it's been a number of years since I needed to do that manually, but it used to be a pretty regular thing for me.

Huh, my wireless mouse does all kinds of weird stuff. The oddest is that sometimes Linux decides that two mice are attached despite there being only one USB dongle plugged in, and the only solution is to turn off the mouse, unplug the wireless receiver dongle, plug it back in, and hope it worked. Otherwise it's either reboot or rmmod/modprobe.

Of course, the mouse is a Razer...

Can confirm. Have been using wireless Logitech MX master 3. There is like 1 in 10 chance that my Linux machine hangs when putting it into sleep and I touch the mouse. Also it is almost guaranteed the machine freezes when i turn the mouse off with the switch on its belly while putting the computer to sleep. It taught me to always save my work at least:)

Interesting - I also have a wireless logitech mouse connected to a ubuntu machine that intermittently crashes when going to sleep. It hadn't occurred to me that the crashes might be linked to the mouse.

I've felt the same way, even on a Mac, but I don't really care about how my mouse "feels" compared to some people. Does the cursor move? Good enough for me.

That said, I'm all in on trackpads 24/7 now and have been for years. Nobody does trackpads better than Apple and using a giant external one while my laptop is docked helps me to remain productive when I need to undock. So much of your productivity is muscle memory and by using a trackpad full time, I'm also flexing those muscles.

I agree that Apple's track pad is the best out there. I find something are just not done well on track pads though. Certain games, certainly. Also things that require long click and drags.

> Certain games, certainly.

An acquaintance mentioned that her daughter damaged the trackpad on her MacBook. She was making do with a regular mouse, but apparently hated it horrendously for Minecraft and desperately wanted to get the trackpad fixed. I can't even wrap my head around the idea of Minecraft on a trackpad.

I've been using the Logitech G502. While the mouse does work using standard USB drivers all the extra features require an open source program to manipulate.

External mouse - agreed.

Trackpad support though has had many issues over the years in my experience across devices & distros.

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