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debian/X/ps2 mouse woes

B

Barnaby W. Füi

Elite Member
my usb mouse was a nightmare, so i am now using a ps/2 mouse that i KNOW works, and the best thing i get is when i use /dev/mouse and protocol "ps/2". that yields very erradic mouse movement, not even close to useable, at all. i'm using xf86 4.x (dont remember more specific version) and debian woody.

i've had debian installed for a long time now, but i'm still in windows because of a god damn MOUSE. i've spent hours in #linuxhelp hashing over it w/ people. i've recompiled my kernel umpteen times (when i was trying to get the usb mouse to work), and frankly i dont know what else to do. it's an ms 2 button ps/2 mouse, nothing exotic or wierd.
 
Try using "/dev/psaux" as the mouse device, /dev/mouse may just be a symlink to that device, but thats the device I allways use in Debian and its working fine on a bunch of comps.

One thing to try is to install gdm, its a system for mouse support in the console, if that works, then it's definately your X config.

And one last thing to try is to use "xf86cfg" to configure, while I dont like that program much, it can almost allways detect the mouse correctly, and you can get the config file values from the file created by xf86cfg.
 
i've tried psaux, it gives me nothing. no mouse movement.

i think you meant gpm, not gdm, well it gives me the same erratic mouse movement in the console.

i've tried xf86cfg, it doesnt do anything for me.

i've been using X -configure now and then "XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new" to test the auto-made config file. i just edit that file to /dev/mouse and ps/2 and that gets me the wierd movement.

thats as far as i've gotten (i.e. the closest thing to success)
 


<< i think you meant gpm, not gdm, well it gives me the same erratic mouse movement in the console. >>


Oups, right you are, getting senile in my old days 🙂

Have you tried protocol "auto"?
I've had that same problem loads of times, and while I dont remember exactly what's been wrong(been a while now), it's allways been with the device/protocol definition in XF86Config.
 
yep, "auto" is what xf86cfg uses, and that doesnt work.

the protocols ps/2 and microsoft both get the erradic movement, other protocols get nothing.
 
Strange, here's the mouse portion of my XF86Config, I have a very similar setup(PS2 mouse, XF86 4.1, Debian).

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"

Same as on the other Debian/PS2 comps I have.
 
Did you try IMPS/2, I believe that's needed for mice with wheels for the wheel to work, although PS/2 should work with no wheel.
 
i dont have a wheel, and i've tried IMPS/2 just for the heck of it, it yielded no mouse movement.

Sunner, What steps did you take to set up your mouse? Did you have to fiddle with gpm at all?

just curious since you have such a similar setup...I think my mouse is mouse0 not mouse1 IIRC.

maybe i'll reboot and give it a try....but every other time i do that and get my hopes up, it doesnt work.

i've been -not- using linux for weeks now, because of a damn mouse. fricken pathetic.
 
Well GPM is mostly something I've used to make sure the mouse is working correctly in the first place, since it's allways been able to detect my mice correctly.

When I setup X I typically use "xf86cfg -textmode", but I have used the regular graphical "xf86cfg" a few times just to have it autodetect the mouse, something it's been very good at.

This has worked flawlessly on several boxes, from an old MMX 166 that I installed for a friend, my dually P2 at work, and my box at home, an XP with a KT266A mobo, the common denominators are Debian, XFree86 4.1, and PS2 mice.
 
wierd.......well gpm doesnt work right with this mouse either......man.....WTF!!!!!!!!!!!! this is so annoying.

well, ok, i KNOW the mouse works, its plugged in right now in windows, and it works perfect. it can't be X or GPM's fault since they both do the exact same thing.....it cant be the kernels fault because i've recompiled it once already w/ this mouse so thats out.....any other stuff related to mice or ps/2 ports that could be messed up somewhere??????????
 
Another thing to try is if you can get hold of a CD with a distro that has a graphical installation procedure, such as RedHat, SuSE, Caldera, etc, and see if the installer detects the mouse correctly, if it doesn't, I'd say there's probabaly something in your comp that doesnt like Linux.

[edit] Oh, just to make myself more clear, I was thinking just starting the setup program, I know at least RedHat's starts the GUI a bit before doing anything at all, an easy way to check if it works at all. [/edit]
 
Try the SuSE eval disk. Then you dont even have to install anything really. See what kind of configuration that has for the mouse.
 
hm so just go throught the install to the point where it detects my mouse, and then how do i check what it decided to use?

btw i used a ps/2 mouse on this computer in redhat before........
 


<< hm so just go throught the install to the point where it detects my mouse, and then how do i check what it decided to use?

btw i used a ps/2 mouse on this computer in redhat before........ >>



The SuSE Live eval is a cd distribution. AFAIK it doesnt install much of anything on the system, it runs off of cd.
 


<< so i would check the /etc/XF86Config on the CD? >>



Or whereever it puts it (memory? in a small file on the disk?). Never mind.
 
never mind eh?

i guess i'm still not totally used to linux directory structure, i forgot that it doesnt matter what a file is on, if its in the file system, then it can only be in one place.

or something
 


<< never mind eh?

i guess i'm still not totally used to linux directory structure, i forgot that it doesnt matter what a file is on, if its in the file system, then it can only be in one place.

or something >>



Well I couldnt find information on whether the SuSE Live Eval needs a hard drive to store files on. If it does it probably works with FAT32. If not, it puts everything in memory and it would be fine for what you need. If you have a fast connection it may be worth downloading to give it a shot. If it just puts everything in memory you would just have to open a command line or editor or something to look at the /etc/X11/XF86Config file (or where ever SuSE puts it).
 
What I would suggest at this point is that you try a different distro. I've been using Slackware 8 for about a month now, and my PS/2 mouse worked fine right off the bat. Well, almost. I had to hack up the xf86config a bit to get the wheel working. 🙂

Or, another thing you might try is getting a new kernel. If you have network access in linux, open up lynx and go to kernel.org, and then download the 2.4.17 kernel.
 

redhat does a nice job of detecting mice.
made my usb mouse work out of the box...and it was MUCH harder to get it to work with a custom kernel.

i have heard of other people having trouble with debian and hardware....apt get is sweet...but having all your
hardware correctly detected and installed by the distro's installer has merits too... 😉
 
yeah i reeeeally want to use debian, i am already loving apt-get, maybe i'll try the suse thing.

oh and electrode: i have the 2.4.16, maybe i'll compile a .17 for the hell of it and see if that might help (im sure it wont, but it couldnt hurt)
 
Oh. I was under the impression that you were using the 2.2.x kernel that came with the distro.

In that case, I'm clueless. 🙁
 
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