I just had to redo this because I've updated my Ubuntu since I last used the RAT on Linux
I don't know why, but the above info I gave was incorrect. My only excuse is that I copied the code from a web site, tried it, it seemed to work (but I did not test it extensively,) then I promptly took the RAT to work and used it exclusively on Windows until today. The following are the lines that actually need to be added to your xorg.conf to make this work correctly.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Mouse Remap"
MatchProduct "Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.7 Mouse"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 0 0 0"
EndSection
8 and 9 are your back and forward buttons (the thumb buttons on the RAT) don't know why the info that I gave previously mapped one of those to 2 which is pointless. In any case this works fine now, although I forget now how I got the thumb wheel to work nicely. If anyone's ever figured out how to get it to do proper side scroll let me know.
BTW 10 and 11 are the thumb wheel ; 12 is the "snipe" button.
Full button assignments:
1: left mouse button
2: center mouse button (down press on scroll wheel)
3: right mouse button
4: scroll up
5: scroll down
6: not used
7: not used
8: side back
9: side forward
10: thumb wheel right
11: thumb wheel left
12: "snipe"
I think that the whole point of going through this exercise is that the button that selects the mode when using this under Windows with the provided drivers needs to be disabled (I'm guessing it's probably Button 13) to prevent the window focus problem.
Now on my Logitech mouse pushing the scroll wheel left is Button 6 and pushing it right is Button 7. Hmmm.... getting an idea here! Will report back as soon as I try something and test it.
Edit: Here ya go. To change the mappings to make the thumb wheel work like the side scroll on a Logitech mouse, HERE is the correct xorg.conf entry.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Mouse Remap"
MatchProduct "Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.7 Mouse"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 4 5 0 0 8 9 7 6 12 0 0 0"
EndSection
Basically, if you're not following what I did here, I remapped "button 10" to "button 7" and "button 11" to "button 6." Haven't figured out what to do with Button 12 (snipe) yet, but I just opened up a spreadsheet in LibreOffice and tried the thumb wheel/side scroll and it works just like I want it to. Enjoy.