OK, I am not as dumb as the post makes me sound. I have been running Suse 9.3 on my dell dimension 4600c for a little over 3 months now.

The Problem: My mouse just quit responding in KDE 3.4 & GNOME 2.10

Troubleshooting I have done:
1) Tried another mouse (no good)
2) Tried anothe USB port (no good)
3) Verified the attached port does work with another USB device (It does)
4) rebooted (sorry M$ Habit)
5) Tried a PS/2 Mouse (no good)
6) CTRL+ALT+F2, new session, logged in as root, ran YaST updates online, got the new kernel and other various updates. (no good)
7) Verified the mouse works on my other SuSe 9.3 computer. (like a champ)
8) Put in spare drive installed XP ... all is good. Grrrrrrrr!!!!!!

OK so the last thing I was doing was burning a DVD in K3B for my brother. The system appeared to seize at 49%, after 2 hours I gave it the 3-finger salute, booted up, no mouse. Plugged in another mouse which worked OK for a day ... since then, no mouse.

I hope someone here is able to help, I'd hate to have to rebiuld the system for this. Thanks!

can u boot into terminal and do mouseconfig to select the mouse again? or edit your xorg.conf or x86 configuration file under the mouse section and manually edit the mouse parameters?

getting to the terminal is no problem, I just ctrl+alt+F2 and boom there I am. Since I am so new to linux I do not know in what subdirectory mouseconfig or xorg or x86 are in. I am pretty sure that SuSe uses x86free and have run the manual config before on a laptop, but do not recall where this is located.

I did run yast from the cmdline without issue and it sees the mouse. Heck KDE announces the change when I boot, but when I select "yes" to have in configure it, I am prompted for the password and then that is all that happens ... and I still have no mouse

Thanks for the speedy reply!

just type 'mouseconfig' at the terminal. its a program and should be in your $PATH variable (meaning you dont need to specify the full location, more or less) i dont think you have to be root to run mouseconfig, try it and select your mouse type/protocol from the menu and then try to startx.
also, rather than switching to a different console (ctrl + alt + f2 or whatever) hit ctrl + alt + backspace to kill your current X session, and it should bring you to a terminal.. THEN run mouseconfig and type 'startx' to load up the gui again..

I get bash: 'mouseconfig' : command not found, so I do not think it is in the path. Also on Suse, CTRL+ALT+BKSP only works (that I know) when your video subsystem fails to start. It took me to a login screen, almost like XP (yuk) so I logged in did CTRL+ALT+DEL and that allowed to arrow to "End Session."

So ... still no squeeker.

OK we are offically worse off than when we started. I remember the command I needed to run. it is "xf86config" it told me the xorg.conf file would be written to either /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 or /etc/X11

Either way I ran the config and now at the default levels the video fail to start. It is looking for a serial mouse (even though I specified othewise) and the video subsystem crashes.

I am going to go run the SuSe repair from the intall utility after I delete the xorg.conf. I'll let you know what happens.

well that also is a fruitless labor. Does anyone know how to make YaST or SuSe rebuild this file? I did and I KNOW it is right, yet it still tried to create a serial mouse, rather then the USB optical one that it used during the inital install.

okay so I have determined that the reason it failed was I failed to specify a device (where is the mouse).

I tried /dev/usb and it balks ... anyone know what this should be or if there is a better config utility under Suse?

I also tried this from x.org
USB mouse

If your mouse is connected to the USB port, it can either be supported by the "Auto" protocol, or by an OS-specific protocol (see below), or as a generic Human Interface Device by the "usb" protocol.

WOO HOO ! I got it! Thanks for the point in the right direction nadroj. I guess once I knew what file was the problem fixing it was just a matter of paying attention.

good work

"get bash: 'mouseconfig' : command not found"

Hi,

i am having the same problem. my usb mouse does not work under x. the cursor does appeear when x loads but it does not move when i move the mouse. I have tried to type in mouseconfig at the prompt and it tell me command not found? i am using linux from scratch. what package does mouse config come with? does it come with X? if it should be installed where should it be?

thank you for any help.

Hello,

I had the same problem. The /etc/X11/xorg.conf became bad for unknow reason.
I modified the file in the section "Section "InputDevice"" and replaced the line
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
by
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

After a logout, login it's working again correctly.
--
free_ouyo