Hey everyone...

Have run into something of a mystery.

Booted up to Linux, and ran into an interesting problem after I logged in and typed xinit

Normally everything is fine, but suddenly today, the mouse was "paralyzed"... wouldn't move at all!

This is a dual-boot machine, and the mouse works fine under Win98. Plus, up until today, it worked fine under Linux.

So I'm figuring I bungled up something somewhere, but I can't figure out what, or how.

I know I've used drakconf once or twice to try and get my network cards set up right, but I don't see how that would affect things. Also got the list of hardware from it once.

And I think once or twice I had to kill the X session by going into another console (CTRL-ALT-F2) and using the kill command, which I suspect MIGHT have something to do with it. But I've done that before without trouble.

Also, I note that starting today, when I do a shutdown or the reboot, command, when it says it's shutting down the console mouse server, I get "FAILED" instead of "OK

Help/guidance, anyone?

Is it a PS/2 or USB mouse? What type of mouse?

Please, post your XF86Config-4 or XF86Config file, they're in /etc/X11/ I believe (I'm in Windows right now, I'll boot Linux later and check).

Maybe you changed some of your mouse settings by accident with Drakconf, or Drakconf itself decided to change some config option.

Killing the X session shouldn' be a problem, at least I never had a problem with killing it from a console or CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE from the Xsession itself.

If you could post the information about your mouse and the X config file, I'll do my best to find the problem.

Mouse is a Microsoft 2-button PS/2 mouse . . and when installing, the default selection was Standard PS/2 mouse, which I chose, and everything worked fine at the time. 3-button emulation worked as well when the mouse had been working.

Ok, here's what I got for my XF86Config-4 file, including all comments....


# File generated by XFdrake.

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the XF86Config man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Mandrake 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
FontPath "unix/:-1"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
#DontZap # disable <Crtl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse doesn't work
#DontZoom # disable <Crtl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
Load "dri" # direct rendering
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "Keyboard"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "Dell"
ModelName "Dell VS17X"
HorizSync 30.0-65.0
VertRefresh 50.0-120.0

# Sony Vaio C1(X,XS,VE,VN)?
# 1024x480 @ 85.6 Hz, 48 kHz hsync
ModeLine "1024x480" 65.00 1024 1032 1176 1344 480 488 494 563 -hsync -vsync

# TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
# 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630

# 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "ATI"
BoardName "ATI Rage 128"
Driver "r128"
Option "DPMS"
Option "AGPMode" "true"
Option "UseCCEFor2D" "false"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
Screen "screen1"
EndSection


Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated, as most of the above is incomprehensible to me . . . I had only started learning about the guts of Linux then had to quit as I got busy with other things. Now I'm rusty on what little I'd managed to figure out!

i am not using mandrake but you can run drakconf from the console so that you do not need mouse to reconfigure you xfree86 setting after resetting them everything should work

I still use a serial mouse, but I've seen others mention the use of IMPS/2 for a protocol instead of just PS/2 like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
EndSection

I don't know how well it works, but it certainly can't hurt to try. Good luck!

I use IMPS/2 as the protocol for my mouse, but it's a USB optical mouse. What is the difference between the two protocols?

Hrm, well, couldn't come up with anything, so I reinstalled the OS.

Seemed to work. Reinstalled FVWM2 and went into X, and all's well.

Then I shut down. Booted up a few hours later, and dead mouse again! And again, shutdown says FAILED for shutting down console mouse services, though it's OK on bootup when it starts up console mouse services.

Also noticed that the mouse didn't work before going to xinit, even though it did the first time I ran the system after the reinstall (moves the cursor about).

Now the thing that's confusing me is why did the mouse work for several days (I shut down every day) the first time I installed, but now it only works on the first bootup after installing the OS?

I'm lost and confused!

Ok, tried yet again to reinstall the OS. And yet again, initial bootup has mouse working fine, and console mouse services start up and shut down OK. And just to be sure, did a diff between my XF86Config file from when the mouse was actually working against that which I posted above when it was not working.... no differences.

I noticed that I could use mousedrake, both in text mode and in X. And in both, I could choose "Standard PS/2" mouse again, and when you quit from mousedrake, I get a FAILED in shutting down console mouse services, and an OK in starting up console mouse services.

Does this shed light on anything?

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I lost your post.

Anyway this is a weird problem. Does the mouse quit working after you try to startx or before? You said that it works at boot time, but when you get to X it's failed. There's got to be something going on with your x start up scripts. Do you have gpm disabled? If not, try killing it to see if this helps. If it does, I would try to keep gpm from running at boot up. This might help, but I'm not sure. Maybe someone else will have better insight into this.

You didn't change anything since re-install? Did you check your hard ware? stuff just don't stop working except for chips. could be a Hardware problem.

Actually, I had my facts slightly off kilter...

Mouse fails upon bootup. I localized *when* the problem happens in a different thread.

See my other thread on this issue.

It actually appears to be related to using drakconf to configure my 2nd ethernet card.

So my next bit is to figure out how to manually configure my ethernet card(s) and then make sure they both get started at boot time. I'd appreciate help if you know the answer to this. Someone told me how to manually configure the NIC in question, and an inelegant way to get it to fire up on startup, but I'd ultimately like to have the whole thing where upon booting, I see the Starting eth0 [ OK ] then Starting eth1 [ OK ] . . .

You're both probably wondering what the heck this has to do with my mouse problems. Click that link above and all will become clear.

It's still just WEIRD . . but it'll make more sense.