---
title: Invert mouse scroll wheel in Debian
author: james
type: post
date: 2011-07-21T11:49:01+00:00
url: /2011/07/invert-mouse-scroll-wheel-in-debian/
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categories:
  - Hacks

---
I&#8217;ve been using the beta of MacOS X Lion for a few weeks now, and after a few days of initial annoyance I&#8217;ve grown to really like the inverted sense of the scroll wheel. I recall when I first got one, in fact, and found the direction downright confusing. This seems to have been an easy behaviour to unlearn.

My desktop box at work runs Debian, and I wanted the same behaviour there to stop me getting split-brain and dribbling a lot. There was a time when a quick change in xorg.conf to `ZAxisMapping "5 4"` would do this, but it&#8217;s not so the modern age of HIDs and evdevs. After a bit of messing about I figured out how to flip the scroll wheel. This will probably work for Ubuntu too.

  * Open the file `/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf`
  * Look for the section with `MatchIsPointer "on"`. It&#8217;s at the top by default.
  * Add this line:
	  
    `Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 5 4 6 7 8"</li>
<p>` </ul> 
    Add more buttons if you need them for your mouse. The section should look like:
  
    `<br />
Section "InputClass"<br />
        Identifier "evdev pointer catchall"<br />
        MatchIsPointer "on"<br />
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"<br />
        Driver "evdev"<br />
	Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 5 4 6 7 8"<br />
EndSection<br />
` 
  
    That&#8217;s it! Just restart X.