Mandrake 8.1 mouse problems
 

Hi

I am a Linux Newbie...

I wanted to try the OS that my friends rave about, so I loaded Mandrake 8.1 in a partition on my Windows 98 system. There was an error during install:
"Can't load/usr/lib/perl5/site-perl/5.6.1/i386-linux/auto/gtk/gtk.so"

this was the only unusual thing that happened.

When the install ended and I booted Linux for the first time the mouse did not work and I was unable to do anything under KDE.

The interface looked intact, but I could not navigate around without a mouse. I used the recommended installation with PS/2 mouse as the mouse config. I have PS/2 wireless keyboard w/ a built in mouse [2 buttons and a pointer control].

I have searched the Linux tech sites, documentation, and I have joined a forum. I know nothing about giving commands to Linux, but I am a quick study so I should be able to do something. :-)

I am a long time computer user [17+ yrs]
so I can follow clear instructions.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.:newbie:

As for your gtk error, I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point.

So you can't get your mouse to work, and you are having a bit of trouble knowing what commands to use.

Well, first off...

I'd say get the latest release of that distro, but that probably isn't why you are having your problem, but it would at least give you the newest things to use and try out.

Onto your problem:

I believe ALT + F2 will open your menu, or a run box, either way, open up your run box with either ALT F2 or ALT F3
Then, run "xterm" without the quotes.

Mandrake probably comes with it's own version of mouseconfig, but I don't know what it's called, or how to call the program so... we will try to do this by hand.

Type into the terminal that opened after you typed xterm:
su -
And enter root's password.

Go into your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, and locate the section on pointers. It should be about halfway down your document. OH, how to enter the file...

Type this:
kwrite /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
If you get a file does not exist thing then remove the -4 and go again, this depends on what version of X you are running, but try the -4 first, if it's there, then you are more than likely running that version.

Ok, so now you are in the file, and have located the pointer section. Now post here what it looks like, just most of section, no need to paste the whole file, but the mouse section would be fine.

In the mean time, I will search for tools that mandrake has for configuring your mouse if our attempt(s) don't work.

Cool

drakconf

Try typing into the run command, drakconf, remember you want to be root when doing this, but try not to change too many things, because you are root you won't get your hands slapped for deleting/changing things that shouldn't be.

Cool

<edit>
This might be a different tool than I thought...

You can also try executing xfdrake. Anyway, here's something that, although isn't funny now to you, will be later:
http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/mdo...r.html#AEN9376

On that page, it shows how to setup your mouse. It says click this, click that, but why? If you are setting up a mouse, how do you "click" anything? :D

I ran into the same problem a while back, only mine was a USB mouse. I was having a great time figuring things out, and found quite a few pages that said, click on this, and then type in that, click OK, and now your mouse should work. Pfff.

Anyway, this shouldn't go too bad, Drake make's some good tools to use, we just have to figure out which one we need. And that's only if editing your file by hand doesn't work, which hopefully it will ;)
</edit>

Cool

Oh, and I almost forgot my civic duties:

Welcome to LQ! :)

17 years! We have members who haven't even been alive that long :D

That's cool, you probably know alot of things that people like me (23 year olds that only learned what a megabyte is 2 years ago) just take for granted and have to relearn when using linux.

Cool

Hi;

Thanks for the welcome and the help.

Yes, I am an oldie but goodie. When I started using a computer in college we only had DOS. I had hoped that this experience would give me a shallow learning curve w/Linux.

Well on to the problem...

I tried the 1st solution you gave me, but RUN said it could not execute the "xterm" command. [w/o the quotes]
However, I did learn to shut down the computer using CTRL+ALT+DEL, instead of just shutting the power off which is what I had to do the 1st time.

I wonder if this computer "as-is" can run this version of Mandrake.
I have 3 computers, two on a network with valuable data. I do not want to experiment with those.

There are some other things that I feel I should mention:

This computer is an old Compaq 9240, Pentium 1 w/16 MB RAM, 8.4GB HD [w/o lg HD support] w/4 partitions [at approx. 2GB’s each] and OnTrack partitioning software, and Win98 in a fresh install. Mandrake is on the 3rd partition.

As stated earlier, when I installed Mandrake I used the Recommended Install Mode. Here is where I think I made a few mistakes.

First I chose the default mouse driver [P/S2] because this is the config of the mouse under Win98.

When I was asked where to install Mandrake I chose Win partition 3 w/a resize partition option. When asked what size to leave for Win98 I left the specified number which was around 1.5GB for Win. When I got to the screen to choose applications to install I was forced to change the recommended selections because I only had 292MB of space available. I installed KDE, GNOME, and the required config programs only.

Well, I said all this to say maybe I don’t have enough space allocated for Mandrake to run correctly.

Should I reinstall Mandrake and give the program more space? Can I reinstall over the current installation, or do I need to uninstall and reinstall? Can I give Win98 minimum space on the partition...say 300MB’s?

Reinstalling would let me look at other mouse options. I was hoping to test drive Mandrake for possible use with another computer I am building, which will be a duel boot w/Win2K or WinXP. [I’m still up in the air about XP since it uses another type of partition]

Let me know your thoughts, and Thanks Again for your time.

I forgot...

I was able to sign on as HOST so I ran drakconf and got in. I even managed to get to the right selection, hardware, but I was unable to select mouse in the list. I looked for commands to accomplish this, but didn't find any. I tried all the keys I could think of...no dice. The keyboard will not let me select MOUSE, it just jumps to the next catagory.

Thanks for the help locating the commands, they will really come in handy and are currently printing.

I'll jump in here since I'm using Mandrake 8.1, on a 200-MHz Pentium II with only about 80 MB of RAM (but 40 GB of disk space, on a pair of 20-GB drives). Log into console mode (as root) rather than the GUI if you can do so (it'll depend on how you configured; I've configured to always come up in console mode and then type "startx" to launch the GUI).

If you don't have a text editor installed, put the CD back in and re-run the installation to add a text editor to your installation. I prefer "vi" which is much like some of the earlier DOS editors (I've been using computers since 1965 and the older editors don't bug me like they do some of the younger folk who learned via GUIs). When you have vi installed, type "vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4" to load the configuration file. From there you can follow MasterC's original instructions -- except that copying and pasting without a mouse are almost impossible in most Linux programs!

If you have a spare rodent around, either serial or PS/2 variety, the simplest solution to your problem would be to just plug it in, then do a reboot of your system. Mandrake is very good about probing all the hardware to configure itself automatically where possible, so that should make your temporary mouse work and let you navigate! And if you don't have one, most of the computer stores (such as CompUSA) sell cheapies for less than $10. They'll serve the purpose, since once you get things going you'll be using your original mouse anyway...

Hope this helps! And I'll echo MasterC's welcome to you. This is one of the most helpful places I've found on the net; I think you'll like it here!

Hi;

Thanks for the suggestion, but I do not have any space to install any other applications on my Mandrake partition. I will have to uninstall the program and set it up again. Thanks for all of your help.

OK, wow, pretty tight spot for both KDE and GNOME...

I'd pick one or the other if you are only going to allow ~300mb. I don't know if win will work on that little either, it sounds like you are stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

I would suggest to reinstall at this point, after resizing and allowing more space in Linux. If you aren't going to do that, then I would still suggest reinstalling (only this time, I really don't like the idea all the time) as it would be easier to uninstall gnome that way.

If you get that far, or whatever you decide, post back, to let me know how to guide you from there.

Here's the plan...

You will want a console text editor, no debates here, choose one of the many (vi, pico, joe, emacs, many more) and install it.

You will also want a GUI, KDE usually is my personal favorite, but again, no debates here, pick one of the 2 major ones (KDE or GNOME) and install it, not both.

Also... You might wanna install the development tools. This is sometimes deceptive to new comers. Development tools are tools that will help you install programs that are available in source form. Not completely necessary at first, but you might run into this need later.

From there you can do just about anything you want, or are given help on doing.

Cool

I've got Mandrake 9.0, so this may not be any help, but maybe it'll work:

- Log in via a console (press Ctl-Alt-F1 to get to a console screen).

- Once logged in, type "mousedrake". If you're not logged in as root, you'll be asked for the root password. Since you're logged into a console, mousedrake will start in text mode rather than in a GUI.

- Select the appropriate mouse device from the list using the arrow keys. Tab over to the "Ok" button when you're done, and press Enter (which "clicks" the Ok button). This closes mousedrake and returns you to the command line.

- Log out of the console session (type "exit").

- Press Ctl-Alt-F7 to get back to your graphical session. If that doesn't work, keep trying Ctl-Alt-Fx combinations (from F1 up to F12) until it does.

You may have to reboot after this; I don't know. I seem to remember the changes taking place immediately, though.

If it doesn't help, keep trying, picking a different mouse device each time. Good luck!

Goodbye for now
 

Hi

I am going to end this thread.

I have tried the solutions that I could execute. Spent about an hour trying to select something in Drakconf.

Reinstalled, giving Mandy a larger space, but that didn't work either...It would not install over the old installation so now I have two copies in 2 different partitions, and I can only access 1. The space being taken up by the 1st install is just useless.

I took note of the recommendation to buy a standard mouse, but if I do that I would have to buy a mouse and a keyboard, as my mouse and keyboard are 1 unit and it will not work unless both the mouse and keyboard are connected.

I could probably take another mouse and keyboard from 1 of my other systems, but that would mean hooking and unhooking to test the config to see if it will work. Maybe some time in the future when I am more ambitious and less busy...

I am sorry to say that I am not impressed enough with what I have seen of Mandy to put that much effort into it right now.
I paid for a commercial release because I thought that I would get easier setup. I am not willing to spend anymore money on Linux right now.

Maybe after I setup the new system, and before I load a Microsoft OS I will try to play with it again. Thank you everyone for all your help. Sorry my attention span is so short right now.:tisk:

2 gig is kinda tight
 

ok, here's my two sense worth:

User Ctrl-Alt-Backspace if your inside of X, Ctrl-Alt-Del is really not used anymore.

Networking, mandrake/linux is pretty good on networks, Samba is a bitch, do not upgrade Samba when you manage to get it working.

I got Mandrake installed on 2.5 gig and that was a default install with three linux partitions (/, /usr & /home). When you let mandrake configure partitions realize that windows cannot see linux partitions so there is no harm in doing that but if you should want to subdivide another partition using OnTrack, you might force the linux partitions to be considered "renumbered" and have to go into /etc/fstab to make manual adjustments. I would recommend System Commander over OnTrack myself. Especially if you have other machines and want to dual (actually triple) boot Win98, Win2K and WinXp with Mandrake Linux also on your system. It's kinda cool actually. Further Win98 is a dog, 300 mb is going no where. However, you should be able to install that on your other Windows partitions. That is, say partition 1 has Win2K already on it, provided it FAT or FAT32 you can also install Win98 there and dual boot there after. (yes, backup data before doing things and I'm also speaking from experience with System Commander, ps. yes, i did at one time have all three Win98, WinXP and Win2K Server actually running off partition 1, a 1 gig drive, leaving the rest of the system for linux to partion up). Also, install in the order of oeprating system evolution, that way each successive windoze release knows how to deal with a previous windoze operating system. Don't use ntfs or anything fancy from xp, stick to good ol' FAT or FAT32.

It's best of course to do all this on a fresh machine. But the rewards are great, in the end I had a 8 gig system with the first gig set to the three amigos to use (win98, win2k, winxp) and the remaining 7 gig for linux to divide up over an extended partition.

And as far as a mouse is concerned, it's often a hit or miss proposition. It's either there or it is not. If your using something fanciful like an integrated mouse and keyboard, thats like challenging the cardinal law with Linux, that is, if you plan to use linux stick with whats been around (hardware wise) for a while, the newer stuff can work with it but like everything bleeding edge, it takes time for the technology to catch up.

Cheers

- perry

:study: