the incompatibility between gpm and X should be proclaimed more loudly

[Matthew Swift <swift@bu.edu>]

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted as well.


The incompatibility between gpm and X should be proclaimed more loudly.

(Perhaps the -R option to gpm can be suggested as an alternative; I have not
tried to get this working.)

The paragraph from the XFree86 README.config quoted below could well include a
mention of gpm. 

Slackware 2.3.0 (and presumably 3.0) warns the user of a potential conflict
with X when it offers to make the boot scripts start gpm.  Debian ought to
follow suit by including warnings and/or revised dependencies in the X and gpm
packages. 

The problems that can occur with a ps/2 mouse (at least) include a long startup
for the X server as it reports problems with the mouse (although then the mouse
works fine); and problems switching among virtual consoles.


---------from XFree86 README.Config 3.1.{1,2} BEGIN

Note that if the server complains about being unable to open your mouse
device, this is NOT a server problem.  It has been a very common
misconfiguration error on several of the OSs, and 99.999% of the time it is
because the device is not correctly configured in the OS.  Hence don't bug us
until after you prove that your OS level support is correct.

---------from XFree86 README.Config 3.1.{1,2} END

----------from gpm man page BEGIN
BUGS
       The  gpm server may have problems interacting with X, with
       selection and with itself.

       With X11 gpm has the same problems as selection.  If  your
       mouse  is a single-open device, you should kill gpm before
       strating X. To kill gpm just invoke gpm -k.
----------from gpm man page END