These are my notes for getting Apple's Magic Mouse 2 with scrolling when connected
to work with Linux. While I'm running Ubuntu 19.04 this should work with other distro's
at it only involves udev which is standard with any modern Linux kernel.
DISCLAIMER: While I've used Linux off an on over the years, I am by no means an expert. I managed to get the Magic Mouse 2 working for me it might not work for you, and I most likely will not be able to assist you. Finally, while these instructions merely add a configuration file and shell script to your system, I take no responsibility for any damage that may occur on yours. As with anything you find on the internet... USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
UPDATE: RicardoEPRodrigues has created a one stop shop that builds and installs the driver, necessary udev rules, and load script with a single install script. While this repo remains here for informational purposes your best bet is to checkout his work and not fuss with all these details.
Apple's Magic Mouse 1 works with Ubuntu out of the box (I tried with a co-worker's), Magic Mouse 2 on the other hand does not work completely (no scrolling) as it speaks a different protocol. Thankfully, someone has written a working driver that you can get from here:
From those instructions, you don't need DKMS nor do you need to run the install.sh
script. Instead just build the kernel module:
cd Link-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver/linux/drivers/hid
make clean
make
Note that the repository will then have you unload the existing driver and load the one you just built which will cause your Magic Mouse 2 to work as intended. However, if you disconnect the mouse, reboot, reset bluetooth, etc. the driver will not be reloaded. I thought I would be clever and replace the existing driver on my system with this new one but everytime I reconnected the mouse the scrolling would not work and I would still have to manually reload the driver.
The work-around listed here is definitely a kludge and uses udev to run a script when
the Magic Mouse 2 is connected via bluetooth. I would recommend checking out this
tutorial about udev rules along with
reading the man pages. Note that the tutorial is a bit old in internet years and refers
to tools udevinfo, udevtest, udevcontrol, and udevtrigger. These should be
replaced with udevadm info, udevadm test, udevadm control, and udevadm trigger
respectively. The udevadm command is pretty handy and you should definitely check out
the man page for it.
The first thing to do is learn how to identify the Magic Mouse when it is connected. We
can look at the output of tail -f ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log while connecting the
Magic Mouse 2 via Bluetooth and look for lines similiar to these:
[ 3821.555] (II) config/udev: Adding input device Magic Mouse 2 (/dev/input/mouse3)
[ 3821.555] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 3821.555] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 3821.686] (II) config/udev: Adding input device Magic Mouse 2 (/dev/input/event21)
[ 3821.686] (**) Magic Mouse 2: Applying InputClass "libinput pointer catchall"
[ 3821.686] (**) Magic Mouse 2: Applying InputClass "Magic Mouse 2"
[ 3821.686] (II) Using input driver 'libinput' for 'Magic Mouse 2'
The important line here is the config/udev: Adding input device Magic Mouse 2 (/dev/input/event21) or more specifically the /dev/input/event21 part. This acutal
location may differ on your system. With this piece of information you can lookup the
mouse's physical ID with udevadm info -a -p $(udevadm info -q path -n /dev/input/event21). This will print out a lot of info but important part will look
similiar to:
looking at parent device '//devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-6/1-6:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:2$6/0005:004C:0269.0013/input/input654':
KERNELS=="input654"
SUBSYSTEMS=="input"
DRIVERS==""
ATTRS{name}=="Magic Mouse 2"
ATTRS{phys}=="d0:c6:37:e4:5f:fb"
ATTRS{uniq}=="98:46:0a:ab:e2:e7"
ATTRS{properties}=="0"
It's the ATTRS{phys}=="d0:c6:37:e4:5f:fb" (your ID may differ) that will be used in a
udev rule to identify the mouse inside a rule in the /etc/udev/rules.d directory. In
that directory create a 10-magicmouse.rules file and add the following:
SUBSYSTEMS=="input", \
ATTRS{phys}=="d0:c6:37:e4:5f:fb", \
ACTION=="add", \
SYMLINK+="input/magicmouse", \
RUN+="/home/user_name/path/to/magic-mouse-2-add.sh"
The 10- prefix was picked arbitrarily and could be any number as it is used to determine
the lexical ordering of rules in the kernel. The earlier the file is loaded guarantees
that the rule will be applied before any others. Ensure that the ATTRS{phys} contains
the correct ID found from earlier and ensure that the RUN+= portion contains an
absolute path to a script on your system. Don't use a relative path or ~ as the
path is not interpreted by a shell and udev processes the path under root. With that
place a shell script can be created at that location and should contain the following:
#!/bin/sh
reload() {
modprobe -r hid_magicmouse
insmod /home/user_name/path/to/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver/linux/drivers/hid/hid-magicmouse.ko \
scroll_acceleration=1 \
scroll_speed=43 \
middle_click_3finger=1
}
reload &
Replace the /home/user_name/path/to with the location of where you downloaded and built
the Magic Mouse 2 driver. You can also adjust the scroll_speed to a value of your liking
(somewhere between 0 to 63). If you wish to disable scroll acceleration or middle
clicking with 3 fingers then set those values to zero. When this script is run it will
unload the default Magic Mouse driver and then load the new one built eariler.
Now we need to reload the udev database with:
sudo udevadm control -R
With that in place the Magic Mouse 2 will now be properly loaded with scrolling when connected via Bluetooth. Note that isn't perfect and sometimes the kernel will attempt to reload the driver several times every a few seconds. Also, your mouse may randomly disconnect at times but this was happening to me before applying this fix, may be related to a kernel battery power management issue, and something I am looking into.