Where the hell is my USB mouse?

Swift&Smart · 12-15-2006, 12:38 PM

Hello,everyone.

I have just installed my fresh Slackware 11 on my notebook today.It seems to me that the installation is good but one thing-USB mouse.

My USB mouse couldn't be detected like the old day with Slackware 10.2. I tried to configure whatever value in the xorg.conf file but it didn't work.I think I got a bad impression on this release because it had a big change between 10.2 and 11. I can easily use my USB mouse in 10.2 but not in 11.

Do you guys have any ideas?Please drop me a line if you do.

H_TeXMeX_H · 12-15-2006, 08:15 PM

Try the 2.6.x kernel, or build your own 2.4.x kernel (if wanna use 2.4.x in particular)

I could never get my usb mouse working with any of the 2.4.x kernels ... only with the 2.6.x kernel (perhaps something was omitted from being compiled into the 2.4.x kernels this time around ?)

alienux · 12-16-2006, 05:11 AM

I had two Slackware 11 installations when it was first released that didn't recognize the USB mouse, and it was because I had installed a 2.6 kernel and forgot the kernel modules package. Maybe not the same issue, but worth mentioning just in case.

tronayne · 12-16-2006, 07:31 AM

Just in case...

/dev/mouse is a symbolic link to /dev/input/mice for a USB mouse if that helps.

Swift&Smart · 12-16-2006, 10:06 AM

Thanks all of the comments which you all gave to me.

tronayne,I discovered that /dev/mouse is pointing to proaux or something like that.I will try your symlink tonight to see whether I can use my USB mouse again.

Other thing.I didn't upgrade my kernel to 2.6 because I just want to get Slackware 11 up and running,that's all.I don't want to waste too much time on upgrading the kernel in order to use my USB mouse.That's ridiculous...

dosterberg · 12-16-2006, 06:17 PM

I could not use my usb mouse with kernel 2.4, only my regular ps/2 mouse but I installed 2.6.18 from cd and the usb mouse worked fine with no additional configuration. I can use either, but the path of least resistence for me was to upgrade the kernel.

rje_NC · 12-16-2006, 07:29 PM

When I install Slackware 11 I always select the huge26.s kernel during the install. When I do the first boot, the mouse will not work until I mount the install CD or DVD and install the kernel-module package from the /extra/Linux-2.6.17.13 directory. I also install the kernel source so after the next boot, the mouse is working and I can then compile a custom kernel to better match my hardware, and get rid of the bloat in the huge26.s kernel.

With these steps, I always get the mouse working, and the 2.6.17.13 kernel in the extra folder works great once you have installed corresponding kernel-module package.

Bob