Hello everyone! Before I begin, I apologize if this quetion has been asked before. I've tried researching it, but have found nothing specific to my problem.

I recently installed Debian 3.0r1 (Woody) with the default kernel. I setup everything without a problem, except the mouse. Whenever I try loading up XWindows (startx), I get an error that states XWindows cannot load because not all of the core devices can be initialized (the mouse being the culprit). It's a two-button, scrolling USB mouse. I setup XWindows to point to /dev/input/mice for the mouse, which I think is the problem. A friend told me that I need to find the USB Mouse module for the kernel and add it, because Debian doesn't initially install it. He told me to run "modprobe", but I am unfamiliar with that command and cannot find resources on it. So here's my question:

How do I install the module into the kernel for a USB Mouse?

If anyone knows of a general tutorial/FAQ for adding modules in Debian, a hyperlink to one of those would more than suffice.

Thank you for your help!

P.S. Once I fix this problem, will KDE (the default GUI I chose) load up right away instead of Debian giving me a text login prompt? If not, how do I make it so I can login graphically? Thanks!

The command for Debian is modconf from root. This will present a menu. You must then scroll down the menu and install support for usb and UHCI devices. If you issue the command cat /dev/input/mice and move the mouse you should then see wierd characters. The fact that usb devices are installed should also be reported in your /var/log/syslog (cat /var/log/syslog)

"P.S. Once I fix this problem, will KDE (the default GUI I chose) load
up right away instead of Debian giving me a text login prompt? If
not, how do I make it so I can login graphically? Thanks!"

not sure about debian (as i've never used it) but with most other distros, you can edit your /etc/inittab file for the line like this

id:3:initdefault

and change 3 to a 5, that will start you in X upon booting, which works with most distros ive used, redhat, slackware....

as far as your mouse problem if all the appropriate modules are loading then when you cat /dev/input/mice you should see a bunch of weird chars. then make sure you have a section in your /etc/X11/XF86Config file under InputDevice that points to your USB mouse like

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "USB Mice"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

i use IMPS/2 for my logitech usb wheelmouse, and the ZAxisMapping is so i can scroll.
and be sure under ServerLayout you have a section saying something like this

InputDevice "USB Mice" "SendCoreEvents"

then when starting x it should stop complaining

hope this helps

Thank you for your input! Next time I have access to the machine (it's a school project) I'll try your ideas out. This forum is absolutely great! A genuine response in half an hour! Kudos to all of you!

Debian's default runlevel is 2, not 3. If you install kdm you won't have to edit /etc/inittab at all.

As stated above, use modconf as root. Make sure you have edited /etc/modules to include your modules you wan't loaded at boot-time. Here's mine (this is for a home-rolled kernel btw)

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file should contain the names of kernel modules that are
# to be loaded at boot time, one per line. Comments begin with
# a "#", and everything on the line after them are ignored.

usb-uhci
input
usbkbd
keybdev
tulip
mousedev
hid
usbmouse
radeon


Good luck.

PS: I always apt-get install hotplug. This solves alot of tinkering for me, but I am quite lazy too.

Can I edit the xfree86 config file without having to use a config program? I want to just simply type in the values.

Yes you may. But you'll have to use emacs. (Just kidding). edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and you'll be good to go.

Good luck!

Ugh sorry that was a question I could have looked up. Thanks for helping a newbie anyways!

this may be a stypid question but whats x windows

The base system XFree86 which gives GUI capability to all the window managers like kde and gnome.

Seems I have the same problem but the above for some reason doesn't fix it. I installed Debian using netinstall with no problems. Starting X works fine but I can't get the mouse to work. I use a Logitech cordless trackball which works fine in Slackware (tried Knoppix to be sure and works fine) I configured the kernel as said above and tried all the different settings for the mouse but still nothing. I went from ttsy0 to ttsy3 (or something similair) and tried all the others. Startx, move the mouse, nothing, logout, reconfigure, startx etc....I didn't reboot after changing settings in x btw. Strange thing is that when I gave up and rebooted to WinXP (using Lilo) to get back on the forum, my mouse didn't work in XP either. I noticed that every time I boot to Debian and reboot to XP I need to change the usb plug to another free one and all is fine. Could this be a bios setting?
Any clues on how to get my trackball working?

Regards

Check /var/log/syslog and see whether kernel support for usb is being loaded at boot. Also check /var/log/XFree86.0.log to see exactly what X is configuring.

Stupid question, but how do I open these files to check them (can't work in X)? I guess Debian will have an editor installed.

you can do

cat /var/log/syslog

or

nano /var/log/syslog

If the modules are loaded (check with the command lsmod) you can do

cat /dev/input/mice

and move the mouse around. You should see garbage output to the screen.

As I mentioned before, get those modules loaded via modconf and then apt-get install hotplug. Edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 with the above snippet posted by baskew91 and this will work.

The default installed editor on Debian is nano, a pico clone.

syslog is generally quite long so you will need to do cat /var/log/syslog | more which will give line by line display.