Re: xorg config-problem -- no mouse (on laptop with synaptics touchpad)

[Florian Kulzer <florian@molphys.leidenuniv.nl>]

Søren Christensen wrote:
> I just made an dist-upgrade from Sarge to Etch. I switched from XFree86
> to Xorg, but it will not start.

[...]

> (**) Configured Mouse: Protocol: "ImPS/2"
> (**) Option "CorePointer"
> (**) Configured Mouse: Core Pointer
> (**) Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
> (EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/input/mice
> 	No such device.
> (EE) Configured Mouse: cannot open input device
> (EE) PreInit failed for input device "Configured Mouse"
> (II) UnloadModule: "mouse"
> (II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.14.4 (1404)
> Synaptics Touchpad no synaptics event device found (checked 14 nodes)
> Synaptics Touchpad The evdev kernel module seems to be missing
> (**) Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
> (EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/psaux
> 	No such device.
> Synaptics driver unable to open device
> (EE) PreInit failed for input device "Synaptics Touchpad"
> (II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"
> (WW) No core pointer registered
> (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Generic Keyboard" (type: KEYBOARD)
> No core pointer
>
> The problem seems to be the mouse or touchpad. The computer is a laptop
> (Compaq Presario 2100), no mouse connected. Before dist-upgrade there was 
> no problem.

I think that /dev/psaux is depreciated in newer kernels. There is a
kernel configuration option to still provide it as a legacy device, but
maybe that is not selected in the newer Debian kernels. I use a
self-compiled kernel, therefore I don't know what the current Debian
default is. You can use

grep -i psaux /boot/config-$(uname -r)

to check what this setting is for the kernel you are running.

Quite possibly you can fix this by finding the new device node of your
touchpad and putting that into your xorg.conf. The device node is
probably in the /dev/input directory, for example /dev/input/mouse0. A
quick way to try it is to become root and run

cat /dev/input/mouse0 | hd

or

cat /dev/input/mouse1 | hd

etc.

If you find the right device you should see output scrolling by as soon
as you do something with the touchpad. (CTRL-C to quit this.)

> Here is /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> # xorg.conf (Xorg X Window System server configuration file)

[...]

> Section "InputDevice"
> 	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
> 	Driver		"mouse"
> 	Option		"CorePointer"
> 	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
> 	Option		"Protocol"		"ImPS/2"
> 	Option		"Emulate3Buttons"	"true"
> 	Option		"ZAxisMapping"		"4 5"
> EndSection
> Section "InputDevice"
> 	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
> 	Driver		"synaptics"
> 	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
> 	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
> 	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
> 	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
> EndSection

If you find the new device node you should put it in here in place of
"/dev/psaux". It might also be better to make the touchpad the core
pointer and shift the "SendCoreEvents" option to the external mouse. If
you google around a bit for "xorg.conf synaptics" you will find many
examples of how to set it up nicely. A good starting point might be
something like this:

Section "InputDevice"
   Driver  	"synaptics"
   Identifier  	"Synaptics Touchpad"
   Option	"Device"  	"/dev/input/mouse1"
   Option	"Protocol"	"auto-dev"
   Option	"LeftEdge"      "1700"
   Option	"RightEdge"     "5300"
   Option	"TopEdge"       "1700"
   Option	"BottomEdge"    "4200"
   Option	"FingerLow"	"25"
   Option	"FingerHigh"	"30"
   Option	"MaxTapTime"	"180"
   Option	"MaxTapMove"	"220"
   Option	"VertScrollDelta" "100"
   Option	"MinSpeed"	"0.09"
   Option	"MaxSpeed"	"0.18"
   Option	"AccelFactor"	"0.0015"
   Option	"SHMConfig"	"on"
EndSection

Regards,
           Florian