Re: Mouse configuration during installation needs improvement
Well shut my mouth! I did some testing this past
weekend, as I said I would, and results are better
than expected. First, leaving things the way I had
them configured (X pointing to /dev/gpmdata and gpm
pointing to /dev/psaux, I unplugged the PS/2 mouse
from the mouse port. The mouse became dead in both X
and gpm (duh!). I then plugged it back in again. It
worked again, both in X and in gpm! Then I configured
X and gpm both to use /dev/input/mice and turned off
gpm's repeater function. After restarting both
daemons and verifying that both X and gpm could use
the mouse, I again unplugged the mouse. Again it was
dead in both X and gpm (duh!). And again I plugged it
back in and it started working again, both in X and in
gpm, with no action on my part. I didn't have to
restart the gpm daemon, I didn't have to restart X, I
didn't have to unload and reload a kernel module, etc.
This is better than I expected.
Of course, this is on a different machine (a Dell
Dimension 4400) than I last tried this on (an IBM
Thinkpad 600). But I'm impressed. Theoretically, one
is not supposed to be able to hot swap a PS/2 mouse.
But it works. Kudos to the kernel folks.
The repeater function of gpm now appears to be
obsolete, as you say. I would still like to see gpm
installed by the Debian installer whenever a mouse is
detected on the system in order to allow copy and
paste in a virtual console. But I'm not going to flog
a dead horse. The powers that be obviously don't like
that idea.
Thanks to all contributors to this thread.
Reply to: