How to make xinput commands permanent

Question

Using Linux Mint 18.1, I've remapped some mouse and keyboard keys using 'xinput' (command below). When I disconnect the mouse and reconnect it, the xinput command must be re-run manually.

I had read that adding them to ~/.xsessionrc is the right thing to do. As you can see I've done that. I've also tried ~/.xinputrc. It'll run once on bootup, but if I disconnect and reconnect the mouse, or sleep the computer, I need to re run the xinput command manually.

Anyone know the right way to keep these commands always active? E.g. how can I make them persist across a device disconnect/reconnect?

davidparks21@ghostmint ~ $ cat .xsessionrc
# Map mouse button 8 (top right) to button 2 (top left) and vice versa
xinput --set-button-map 10 1 8 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12

# Fix numeric keypad for shift-home and shift-end
setxkbmap -option numpad:microsoft

Answer 1

You can run this script, after plugging, or unplugging usb device, code will execute:

while true; do state=$(lsusb) && sleep 2 && [[ $state != $(lsusb) ]] && echo "Change detected, replace echo with your command"; done

Answer 2

Here's my final solution, I corrected an extremely unlikely and non critical race condition in Nir's answer. Also I handle the fact that I can't remap the keys when the mouse is unplugged (no error messages while it's unplugged).

I added to ~/.xinitrc:

# Map mouse button 8 (top right) to button 2 (top left) and vice versa, run when changes to the mouse occur
while true; do
  NEW_MOUSEID=$(xinput | grep "Expert Mouse" | grep -o -E '[0-9]+' | head -n 1)
    if [ "$MOUSEID" != "$NEW_MOUSEID" ]; then
      MOUSEID=$NEW_MOUSEID
      if [ "$MOUSEID" != "" ]; then
        xinput --set-button-map $MOUSEID 1 8 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12
      fi
  fi
  sleep 2
done &

I used the mouse ID parsed from xinput as the trigger instead of lsusb, but it's has the same effect.

Note that the pipes after the xinput command just parses the ID of the mouse, which can change. The extra NEW/OLD mouse ID's were an anal avoidance of any possibility of a race condition.

Thanks @Nir for the suggestion.

Answer 3

For what is worth:
You can use ~/.xsession file, rather than ~/.xsessionrc.

~/.xsessionrc is Debian-specific, while ~/.xsession is UNIX-like and have a similar behaviour across all the distros.

Answer 4

Loading configuration files on startup all depends on what desktop environment is being used. If you were start your xserver by typing startx that will normally indicate that it will use .xinitrc (stored in $HOME).

Within .xinitrc you will have to load the config that has the different mappings, i.e .xsessionrc

Then line you will need is this (in .xinitrc)

xrdb -merge ~/.xsessionrc 

However, if you are using a login manager such as LightDM or GNOME you will have to find the same equivalent