Re: [SOLVED] New 3-button serial mouse not detected by Lenny

[Chris Austin <chrisaustin@ukonline.co.uk>]

Hi,

On Saturday 15 May 2010 23:11:27 Kent West wrote:
> I would take X out of the equation, and see if you can get it working in
> the console with gpm.

This has now worked, and the 3-button serial mouse is now working in KDE with
the data fed through gpm more or less as described in

http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/FAQ#lefthandmouse

but with a crucial difference.  Specifically, the non-commented-out lines of
/etc/gpm.conf now read:

device=/dev/ttyS0
responsiveness=
repeat_type=ms3
type=mman
append=''
sample_rate=

And the non-commented-out lines of the only part of /etc/X11/xorg.conf that
refers to the mouse now read:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option "Device" "/dev/gpmdata"
        Option "Protocol" "IntelliMouse"
        Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

The most crucial difference from what I expected from the documentation, and
from what dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg put in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, is the line
device=/dev/ttyS0
in /etc/gpm.conf.  I guess the explanation must be that /dev/input/mice is only
for PS/2 mice.  So the statement by Xorg -configure that Xorg detected the
(serial) mouse at /dev/input/mice is at present unexplained.

A clue to why the above arrangement works is provided in
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/3-Button-Mouse-8.html
which states that the -R option of gpm, apparently related to repeat_type,
makes gpm re-export the mouse data to a new device, called /dev/gpmdata, which
looks like a mouse to any other program.

This 3-button mouse is the one described as 3 Button AT Serial Mouse 520 DPI on
Amazon UK and was purchased from CableCity.co.uk via Amazon.  I subsequently
found and purchased a PS/2 mouse of the same design on the CableCity website,
but it hasn't arrived yet.  These two mice are the only genuine 3-button mice
with 3 genuine buttons rather than 2 buttons plus a scrollwheel / button that I
could find.  The PS/2 mouse on the CableCity website cost just 99 pence plus
postage and is marked for clearance, which seems a shame.  The name on the
serial mouse box is Easy Mouse, and the box says Made in China.  The side panel
of the box indicates that a USB version and a Combo PS/2+USB version might also
be available.

The three buttons now appear to be working as they are supposed to, i.e. 1 for
select, 2 for context menus, and middle / 3 for paste, and even just while
writing this message it has been an enormous relief to be able to paste with a
proper middle button, rather than by 3-button emulation, which in Lenny
frequently gives an unwanted context menu, and even worse, sometimes activates
an item in that context menu.

Best regards,
Chris Austin.