Re^2: How do I get GATEWAY2000 PS/2 mouse to work ? (fwd)

["Susan G. Kleinmann" <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>]

> On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, Mike Taylor wrote:
> Lots of people seem to have problems getting PS2 mice up.  My Gateway +
> PS2 worked fine under Slackware 3.0, but I still can't get it to work
> under Debian.  I have tried all the stuff that you tried plus
> compiling a custom kernel (with the Debian source package) but no dice.
> My (admittedly cowardly) solution: cheap serial mouse.

My experience is that there are a couple of good hardware reasons for 
getting serial mice instead of PS/2 mice:
-- we accidentally fried a BIOS chip by delivering a static charge through 
   a PS/2 mouse.  This has never happened with a serial mouse,
   and leads me to suspect that the PS/2 connector (or at least the connector 
   we used to have on our R.I.P. Asus '486 motherboard) is less robust against 
   static than an serial connector.
-- removing the PS/2 mouse frees up an IRQ.
-- one never knows if/when PS/2 mouse is going to be available in a 
   downloaded kernel, whereas serial support is virtually always there.

I have had some problems with some serial mice though, particularly those
cheap ones which change their state when the power goes off.

Cheers,
Susan Kleinmann