Ive got a dell inspiron 8200 laptop touchpad mouse that I currently cant use with linux. In the initial stages of the linux installation I was able to use it. What do I configure to be able to use it? I looked in the Configure KDE interface but that only gives me the option to configure the existing working mouse (my generic usb wheel).

Hi.

I'm led to believe that most touchpad mice are actually just generic PS/2 mice. Try configuring X to use the 'Generic Two Button Mouse (PS/2)' option.

Dave

from what I read, I think your right, touchpad mice are P/S2 devices but I dont know how to configure x to use it. I tried but it didnt work. I don't know whats working behind or infront of this configure file to know where this information im putting in is going or coming from.

I put in a whole new section by copying sources from the interet that went like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Touchpad Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse1"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
EndSection

the original mouse(my USB mouse) is configured like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/usbmouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

I now have both input sections.

in looking at the /dev directory after configuring this, there is no mouse1. Like I said, I dont know if im coming or going here. Is that "Option Device dev/mouse1" pulling, or putting?

I hope that made sense.......it barely does to me. lol

anyway after that i configured the ServerLayout to be like this:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Touchpad Mouse" "SendCoreEvents"
Screen "screen1"
EndSection

And after all of that, nothing. Still cant use my touchpad/PS2 mouse.

By the way, I only reconfigured the XF86Config-4 file. I dont need to configure the XF86Config file as well do I?

Hi again.

Try changing /dev/mouse1 to /dev/psaux.
See if that works.

I would also swap the

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Touchpad Mouse" "SendCoreEvents"

values round to

InputDevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Touchpad Mouse" "CorePointer"

and remove the "Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"" line from the Touchpad Mouse section and put it into the mouse1 section.

So that your touchpad will work all the time, and your usb mouse will work when you plug it in - the CorePointer is the one X will try to use, and the one with "Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"" line sends movements etc 'through' the CorePointer (sort of - it's all about how X sees devices).

And no, you should only have either XF86Config-4 for or XF86Config, whichever one you have is the one you should edit - different distributions use different files (this may be due to slightly different versions of XFree86 being used).

Dave

Oh yeah, try
#ls /dev | grep psaux

If the stuff in the previous post doesn't work.

You should get:
crw------- 1 root root 10, 1 Oct 14 09:05 psaux

or something very similar.

Dave

Hey, that worked out just fine. Thanks alot!

How does one know about these things? Do you know of a good website that is focused on things like configuring X, the processes of X, the purpose of X? Things of that sort. I have a linux admin book coming in the mail that will probably give me a general idea. But who knows how long before I actually get it. I don't want to just make things work, I want to understand how they work. This being the biggest reason for wanting to switch to linux.

Your insight helped alot. Thanks again.

The best piece of advice I have ever been given about Linux is "'man' is your friend".

That and Google.

Oh yeah, and "The Complete Reference - Red Hat Linux" a big, fat, worn out book that doesn't leave my desk. Ever.

And the greatest of these is Google.

Seriously, though; if you need to find a command line argument for a program 'man' is excellent (as is 'info' for some programs), and if you can craft a search string in subtle ways Google Always Has The Answer.

What Google doesn't have, however, is an index at the back and it isn't even remotely useful if you need to find out how to configure PPP when your modem goes haywire and you can't get on-line, so the 'big fat Linux book', as it is known, can prove very useful indeed.

Good luck!

Dave.