How to open the Gnome Menu with the MX Master 3 thumb button

A super specific howto for a super specific usecase - mine, that is. I’m mostly documenting this so I can find it in the future, but this might be useful if you:

• Have a Logitech MX Master 3 mouse
• Use the Gnome desktop on your Linux computer
• want to use the mouse’s thumb button to open the Gnome ‘Activities’ thing / menu / exposé or however you like to call it.

Technically we just make the thumb button trigger the left meta key (also known as Super or just the Windows key). If you want it to trigger a different key, adjust the config accordingly.

Do the following:

Install LogiOps

Find it here: https://github.com/PixlOne/logiops

Your Linux distro might ship it, e.g. Fedora has a convenient logiops package.

Write config file

The following config goes to /etc/logid.cfg. Of course you can add more config options to it if you want.

devices: (
{
    name: "Wireless Mouse MX Master 3";
    smartshift:
    {
        on: true;
        threshold: 30;
        torque: 50;
    };
    hiresscroll:
    {
        hires: true;
        invert: false;
        target: false;
    };
    dpi: 1000;

    buttons: (
        {
            cid: 0xc3;
            action =
            {
                type: "Keypress";
                keys: ["KEY_LEFTMETA"];
            };
        },
    );
}
);

Maybe try starting logid manually at this point and see if it picks up your config and everything works as expected. Depending on your computer it probably needs sudo.

Write systemd unit file

The systemd unit that starts logid lives at /etc/systemd/system/logi.service on my system.

[Unit]
Description=Logitech Mouse Driver

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/logid
Restart=always
ExecReload=/bin/kill -SIGHUP $MAINPID

[Install]
Alias=logi.service
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Activate

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable logi.service
sudo systemctl start logi.service

Enjoy!