Re: Help Please!!

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

William Bradley wrote:

> On Monday 25 August 2003 06:10 pm, Kent West wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Sorry; I guess I didn't make myself clear. Forget completely about X for
> > now; in fact, you might want to even disable the graphical login screen
> > (add "exit 0" as the first non-comment line in the appropriate script:
> > /etc/init.d/gdm or kdm or xdm or wdm and then reboot). Get the mouse
> > working in the non-X console first via gpm. Once that's working, then
> > you can worry about X.
> >    
>
> Did the above, X is now disabled and boots to the command line.
>
>  
>
> > If I remember correctly, you said this mouse works fine in Windows on
> > the same box. I guess that means the mouse has not been
> > unplugged/replugged, with the attendant possibilities of broken/bent
> > pins, bad connection, etc?
> >    
>
> I turned off both of my machines, and took the PS/2 scroll mouse off the 
> Mandrake unit, and installed it on the dual boot Debian unit. Then booted 
> them both up again. The one that I took off the Debian unit, that was not 
> working there, worked fine on the Mandrake unit. The one I took off the 
> Mandrake machine is stationary on the Debian unit.
>
>  
>
> > In the text console, using gpm, you should see a white rectangle as your
> > mouse pointer. It should function just as a pointer should, only it'll
> > be rectangular instead of pointy. Do not try to configure gpm from
> > within X! Get out of X completely to do this. Kill X. Exit X. Do not
> > start X. Forget X. Ex X.
> >    
>
> I now have a white rectangle but it is stationary on the screen.
>
> Thank you for this help, I appreciate it very much and I would like to get 
> Debian going.
>
> Bill.
>  
Okay, so we know for sure the mouse is okay. And if either mouse works 
on Windows on the "Debian box", we can assume the ps/2 port is okay. 
Which leaves software.

I see two basic possibilities:
1) kernel issues
2) gpm issues

I believe you said earlier that "cat /dev/psaux" generated garbage as 
expected, which pretty much eliminates kernel issues. Still, you might 
be interested in upgrading the kernel (assuming you have 2.2.20 - "uname 
-a" will report it for you).

More likely, your problem is with gpm (or X, when we get there). Again, 
I see two basic possibilities:
1) older version of gpm not working right with that particular mouse
2) wrong settings in gpm.

The older version issue is probably not the case; ps/2 mice have been 
around quite a while. However, you might consider upgrading to unstable 
if this isn't a box that needs 24x7 uptime (or five 9s - 99.999%).

Mostly likely the protocol is wrong. I don't remember; is this a wheel 
mouse? If so, try "fuimps2". You can also type "help" when asked for the 
type during "gpmconfig" for a list of other protocols to try. Experiment 
and see if you get any motion.

Let us know.

--
Kent West (westk@acu.edu)