BTNX for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise

I thought that the wonderful mouse button configuration programs, btnx and btnx-config, were both available in the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories. Well, apparently they aren't? [But they were for a time, and I don't know why they were removed.]

UPDATE: For those running 12.10, I have posted a slightly dirty but workable solution here. Hopefully someone will take my patches and make a PPA of btnx. I'm looking it myself but it feels like a lot of work.

btnx is the best mouse-button configuration program I have found, bar-non, in any operating system so far. (I've tried others but they are either too complicated OR don't do the simple things I wanted.)

To install btnx in Ubuntu 12.04 (assuming Ubuntu doesn't fix this glaring error themselves), just download the appropriate version for yourself:

• 32 bit: main program / gui
• 64 bit: main program / gui

Look under the "Downloadable files" section. Don't grab the file for Oneiric, because that's the wrong version for 12.04 precise.

For example, you would want to download this sort of file (if you were running 64-bit): btnx_0.4.11-3ubuntu2_amd64.deb (19.3 KiB)

Make sure to get both the main program and the gui. After you have downloaded them, you need to install them. You may be able to install them using a graphical program, and then resolving the dependencies later. My approach was a little different and slightly more advanced but I knew exactly what was going on.

I opened a command console window, changed directories to where I had downloaded the btnx *.deb files, and ran the following command:

sudo dpkg -i btnx*

It proceeded to partially install the programs, but had a dependency error. I then ran this command to fix the dependency problem:

sudo apt-get install -f

In my case, this installed the dependency package 'menu'. Then btnx was successfully unpacked and installed. Now, btnx tried to auto-start its service after this but had an error. However when I manually ran the program manually through the applications menu, it opened just fine. I fed it my previously saved config files and everything worked.