Re: No Mouse in X

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Dave Walker wrote:
> Running Sarge 3.1 with kernel 2.4.27-2-386
>
> I have been having problems configuring my mouse in X.
>
> My initial install was from the Sarge 3.1 cd's prior to my having an
> active internet connection. My install was via:
>
> apt-get install x-window-system  (from cd's)
>
> I am considering removing x and reinstalling from the net, to see if
> my installation will become functional.

No need, if the only problem is a mouse problem.

What I've tended to do in the past is get my mouse working _outside_ of
X first, because that allows me to verify that the mouse is working
without the complexity of X being involved. To do this, "apt-get install
gpm".

Alternatively, you can simply keep trying to reconfigure X until you get
a working mouse. "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common" or "dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xfree86" might get you going. Or you can manually edit
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4.

(Or perhaps Sarge uses X.org now instead of XFree86, in which case some
of the commands above would be different, but I don't think that's the
case. Sarge is pretty old; I suspect that unless you _need_ Sarge for
some reason, you'd be happier with Etch.)

You can also get a clue as to which mouse device to use in your X config
file by typing something like "cat /dev/ttyS0" or "cat /dev/input/mice"
at a command line and moving the mouse; you should see garbage appear on
the screen when you've found the correct device file. (ctrl-c to stop
the garbage.)

> I think the command to remove x should be:
>
> apt-get --purge remove x-window-system                   , then to run
>
> apt-get install x-window-system  (from the net)
>
> Keeping in mind that I am a Debian newbie, does anybody see any
> problems with this approach?

As I understand it, "x-window-system" is simply a "virtual package" that
depends on all the stuff needed for X. Removing this virtual package
does not remove its dependencies, so this command would be useless for
removing X. (aptitude, I believe, might do the task however, as it's
"smarter" about removing dependencies than is apt-get, but I'm not
positive on that.)

But again, removing X is overkill in order to just fix a mouse problem.


-- 
Kent