Getting a KVM Switch to work with Linux
 

I have Red Hat Linux 9, yes yes I know its kinda old but I tried Suse and Mandrake and just liked Red Hat better! Ok well i have a win xp comp and this redhat comp and want to share the same keyboard monitor and mouse so they are both connected up but when I try to switch to or from my linux computer, every time I switch back, the mouse goes nuts and flies around the screen and i suppose is constantly using the left mouse button click because i move the mouse and like fifteen differnt things happen at once. I have a Belkin KVM switch, a Meomorex optical mouse, the drivers for the Red Hat machine are just generic optical scroll mouse. I have used the kvm on two windows comps and with suse and mandrake and they were fine.. except when i was installing the other two flavors of linux, the same problem occured, but when i was in the acutal os, it was fine. I was wondering if yall could help me out.. Thanks!

-Jason

I believe you would need to upgrade to the latest kernel or upgrade to the newest distro (maybe try fedora core 3).

The KVM is the source of your problem ...
 

MooMooFarm,

I had a Belkin 2-port switch that did exactly that.

The problem is that the switch does not correctly handle the mouse wheel protocol (I know ... but don't ask !!). For some strange reason, Windows doesn't care, but Linux goes potty ...

Two solutions ..
1) Upgrade to a switch that *does* handle the protocol properly
.. I upgraded to a 4-port switch of generic Chinese manufacture (model K-14-E)

2) Reconfigure the mouse on your Linux box to be only a 2-button mouse (so exclude the wheel)


I'm now on a new KVM, but also knocked out the mouse wheel (mouseconf, from memory) and just used the two buttons.

William

For what its worth, I occasionally have the same problem with Windows on an expensive Black Box KVM switch at work. Seems to be caused by specific models of motherboards.

I also have the same problem with a belkin four port kvm, but my mouse has no wheel and X is not setup for it and it still didn't work. I wound hooking up an extra mouse so I have two mice on my mousepad I can switch between - wasn't that hard to get used to.

I've also noticed that you can hang a tty console or even a konsole under KDE when switching between KVM ports. Anyone else have this problem?

I ran into the exact same problem with a Belkin. Basically, I could start up in either Linux or Windows, I could then successfully switch to the other system, but attempting to switch back was always a failure - the mouse totally died.

My solution was to throw out the Belkin. I am now using a Trendware 4-port, which works excellently. -- J.W.

OK, well thanks guys for the quick answers... I love this place... Yall are awesome.