PS/2 mouse not working with 'Legacy USB' option
 

Hi,

I have been using Debian 3.1 (Sarge) with kernel 2.6.8-2-386 on my Pentium M system. A couple of days ago I noticed that my PS/2 mouse won't work when I enable the 'Legacy USB' option in my BIOS setting. If I disable the 'Legacy USB' option, my PS/2 mouse works fine along with USB mouse. My USB mouse works fine in both the situation i.e. when the 'Legacy USB' is enable/disable I have tried the workarounds like:

psmouse.proto=imps and i8042.nomux as kernel boot parameters but it didn;t help.

I did a lot of researching over the Internet and then I found that it is because in Kernel 2.6 they have moved the drivers into the kernel space from the user space. Unfortunately I was not able to find a solution how to get the PS/2 mouse working with USB Legacy option enabled in the BIOS.

Also, I have tried the following link but I was not successful.
http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.d...lee/fun/psaux/


Also the following links reports that it is a bug but apparently no clear solution has been given.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=120859
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=137691

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I will be glad to post any diagnostic output like:
cat /proc/bus/input/devices
lspci -xvvv
dmidecode
etc....

Will upgrading to a newer kernel help?

Does this only occur in linux or is that your only os on this system ?


Mabye its some strange irq shareing violation or something. Not 100% sure.

well it happens in Debian only. I downloaded the Mandrake 10.2(kernel version 2.6.11-something) and the PS/2 mouse worked fine with "Legacy USB option". I haven't tried any other distro. Looks like some kernel configuration options are not enabled

anytakes???
:confused:

Just disable USB Legacy then your troubles are over. What is the big deal.

If you are saying that the PS/2 just does not work with 2.6.x kernels. Then there is an easy fix that many distributions do not do. The PS/2 mouse have to be set as a module. Then upon boot up load psmouse module by adding to rc.local. Putting a line in /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf does not work because how earlier 2.6.x kernel detects PS/2.

You always upgrade to 2.6.14 or the next stable release. The kernel developers have fixed the PS/2 issue with kernel version 2.6.14 and up.

Thanks you very much for the effort. As far as I understood from you reply, I have to possible options:

1.Either I should upgrade my kernel to 2.6.14 and the problem is solved.

or

2. I should recompile the kernel with PS/2 mouse set as a module and then add a script which will load the module in the /etc/rc folder. If yes, then what is the line that needs to be added. Debain does not have anything such as rc.local.??

Thank you once again.

I suggest upgrading the kernel because 2.6.8 has a lot of problems and it is vulnerable.

The links below tell you how to setup the rc.local like file.
http://www.plope.com/Members/chrism/...rc_local_equiv
http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-customizing.en.html

Thanks a Electro for all the effort!!! One last question, while upgrading my kernel to 2.6.14, is there any thing that I should keep in mind with regards to PS/2 mouse. Should I still compile PS/2 mouse as a module or just let it be the way it is.