Completely unpredicatble mouse behavior in X
 

Alright, I've heard of some strange mouse behavior in X-windows, and had some myself, but none such as strange as this... I finally got my 2.6 kernel working the other day on a fresh install of gentoo, and I went ahead and installed XFree86... I set up the config file the same way as it was before in the mosue section, which was:
Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

EndSection

It worked without a hitch in my old 2.4 kernel system with the same exact mouse... only difference is, i previously added the line

Option "Resolution" "512"

but it appears that it doesn't matter if I add this line or not; i've tried it both ways.
The problem is, whenever I'm in X, no matter wether it's in KDE or twm, or wether I am using XFree86 or X.org (i've tried that one too), my mouse behaves completely uncontrollably. Sometimes it'll move like normal, but then you might touch the mouse again and it might decide to jump over to the upper-right hand corner of the display. Other times, if you click any button on the mouse, it might move in some random direction instead of clicking, but, then again, sometimes it'll work fine. The cursor also clicks at random, whenever there's any mouse activity (i.e.: simply moving the mouse). I'm really at a loss as to what might be causing this, particularly because it always worked before, and the same mouse works in windows too. By the way, said mouse is a generic PS/2 optical mouse; but i've tried a different optical USB mouse, as well, with the same exact problem.

Thanx for any help!

LOL, seems you've got a polstergeist on your mouse!!!
That's really weird. I guess you have to tweak the kernel for solving that, although i have no idea of what (input devices??) and i'm not in the 2.6 kernels, so my help won't be really helpfull, but it's the only thing that comes to my mind right now.

Make sure you're not running the console mouse service (usually referred to as gpm or gpmouse) while you're in X. I've always had to kill or disable it unless I wanted the cursor to go completely bonkers in X.


Håkan

First of all, sorry to all for the ultra-late post...

Anyway, to see about the kernel-tweaking problem I installed a 2.4.26 series kernel to see what happened; the same problem occoured, only this time for some reason the mouse snapps back to the lower-left hand corner, instead of the upper-right hand corner (I don't know if that means anything). So I don't think it's just a kernel problem.
Second, to the best of my knowledge, I have never run gpm or any other console mouse service, so I don't think it's that either...
The whole thing seems really strange now, since it does this now in 2.4 kernels, while before I did a clean install it worked fine on 2.4 kernels...
Thanx for the help!

Just an update on the last post, just to make absolutely certain that gdm wasn't the problem, I completely uninstalled gdm... However, this appears to have done nothing as well. Perhaps could it be a problem with the mouse section of my XF86Config? I haven't changed anything from what is was previously in this thread...
Thanx for any help!

check with ANOTHER MOUSE to see if your kernels srewed

Well, as you suggested, I checked with a third mouse this time, this time a different PS/2 mouse which I also know works in windows... yet I still am having the same symptoms. However, with this mouse the problems are not quite as bad for some reason, and not quite as common, but still render the mouse near to unusuable. I don't know if it means anything that the severity of the problem has to do with the particular mouse used...

Oh, and another thing: it seems that the problem sometimes gets worse the faster you move the mosue... don't know how helpful that information might be...

Maybe you could try:

Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" instead of psaux.

That's what I have in Slackware.

well, i tried that as well, and, once again, it did nothing... I also got the idea of trying an entirely separate X-windows setup by trying using the mouse in the X-window manager built into LNX-BBC (the bootable business card Linux CD). When I tested the mouse under LNX-BBC, it worked without a hitch, so I'm thinking it has to do with something that seems completely unrelated... I'm probably going to do a clean re-install, and I'll post back my results.

I have exactely the same problem on my notebook!!!
 

I have exactely the same problem on my notebook!!! This is since a couple of weeks, before I never had a similar problem.

Sometimes the cursor jumps around like crazy and *clicks* everywhere, when I try to *move*. This happens mostly (but not exclusively) if an external mouse is connected. Mostly, if I use the external mouse and the cursor starts jumping, I can touch the internal touchpad, then everything is normal again.

I have two external mice:
- At work a normal PS/2 mouse
- At home a scroll mouse IMPS, but the wheel does not work (configured as PS/2 because the two mice seem to be incompatible)

The problem exists with *both* mice!

Worse since SuSE 9.1, Kernel 2.6
 

Note: It has become much worse since update to SuSE9.1 yesterday! Now I really can't work anymore. The problem not only happens every couple of minutes with external mouse, but also quite often with external mouse/keayboard disconnected.

I am now about compiling kernel 2.6.7, hope it will help...!

Kernel 2.6.7 does not help!
 

Kernel 2.6.7 does not help, but I have more sys-messages:

A lot of during use of touch pad:
- psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
- psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 4

When using the external mouse and the mouse jumps around (repeated 2-3 times):
- atkbd.c: Spurious ACK on isa0060/serio0. Some program like XFree86, might be trying access hardware directly
- psmoouse.c: bad data from KBC - timeout

Any Idea?

Well, i have two kind of vague ideas:
First, are those external mice that you are using of a well-known brand? I know that my mouse is some kind of off brand, and you have to turn on the "Resolution" option in XF86Config in order to make it move more smoothly. Just a guess, but maybe your mouse is just Linux-unfriendly. Try it with another PC or another OS to see, perhaps.

Another thing: do you know what type of pointing device your laptop uses (i.e.: what brand/driver does your touchpad use?) The reason I'm asking is that I'm having problem's with my new laptop's Alps touchpad, as well, but I have that in another post... I know that those touchpads can be a little tricky, inherently, and may need their own drivers to control them separately...

To me, that is clearly a sign that your mouse cord is deffective.

I had exactly the same symptoms once, and
just cut the section of the cable that was the most torn during normal use
(like 15cm, starting from the mouse itself), then rewired.

Worked like a charm.

The mouse cord is NOT defective. He tried multiple mice and the problem persisted. Also, I am currently having this problem in Slackware 10 with kernel 2.6.8. I thought it was my MS natural kb and MS optical mouse. But the problem persisted when I hooked up my new Logitech wireless set. Also, when either kb/mouse setup is tested in Windows, it works fine.

These problems did not start until I performed a swaret update over a week ago.

Here's the thread I posted yesterday,
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...68#post1219568

The last suggestion is to try a different GUI than KDE.

Good Luck,
krfan1