Yeah so anyways I am tryin to learn Linux but I keep havin bad luck. First Red Hat destroyed my partitions and now Mandrake 9 won't let me use my mouse. If anyone out there has a USB Wireless Microsoft Blue mouse and it acctually works with Mandrake please reply and tell me how you did it. I formated 3 times cause I don't know the shortcuts for Linux either lol. So yeah help would be greatly appreciated Thanx

Yes, I have the blue ms wireless mouse and Mandrake 9 and a Thinkpad, I duct-taped the receiver to the back of the screen, lol!, It works fine, it will work for you too, have patience.

Ok, stop formatting, stop re-installing... those are things you *used* to do to get windows to work, they aren't necessary or beneficial in Linux, they just wear out your disk .

Next question, what exactly do you mean when you say "Mandrake 9 won't let you use your mouse?, what happens?

Well the problem is that the mouse only moves up and down and its backwords. The buttons seem to just move the mouse to the right. Its weird cause during instillation I chose the 3 button wheel mouse and it keeps setting it as generic when I looad Mandrake. Right now I am using my ps2 mouse but I would like tpo see how to get this mouse workin .

Thanx a lot for replying too

right now I'm actually using both the trackpoint (da nubbin') and the wireless wheelmouse simultaneously, you'll need to mod your X config to do it.

first, can we see the output of this command in Konsole:
grep -i -A 10 input /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

here's the relevant sections of my config:

# this is the wireless blue ms wheel mouse in the usb port
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/usbmouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

#this is the da nubbin

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse2"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
Option "EmulateWheel"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

this section pulls it all together:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse2" "CorePointer" #nubbin
InputDevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents" #wheelmouse
Screen "screen1"
EndSection

once your config is right, we'll get to the module twiddling which is what I do to get this working. I have to rmmod hid and usbmouse and then insmod them to get this working, otherwise I have the exact same behavior as you, left-right=up/down and buttons move the cursor a little bit.

K Thank you so much man I have to work but as soon as I get home the stuff will be done. Thanx

Well I got the setting to be just like your for the USB mouse. So that was the first thing you wanted me to do although I had to add the Inputdevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents" #wheelmouse line cause my didn't have it. So now I guess I wait for further instructions. The first time I did it for some reason it took me to the terminal screen right away and than I tried to redo it back somehow so I used the .old config file and than I gave up and did the windows thing and reinstalled it. I am just glad it takes like 20 min compared to 2 hours with XP lol.

Yes, that quick install time is definitely a plus

I truly apologize for not being more clear and concise, having to reinstall must have been a bit annoying, I'm going to try and help you avoid doing that again, here goes:

Now that you've re-installed, please put things as they were when you first posted, meaning, you have set the mouse up and now in KDE it just goes up and down when you move it and the buttons seem to move it a bit to the right.

Make sure you log in as root for the rest of this. Open a Konsole and type modprobe -r usbmouse hid usb-uhci. Next type insmod hid, then insmod usbmouse, then finally insmod usb-uhci. This is what fixes it for me on 2 different systems, I'm not sure exactly why, but I'll find out eventually and post it here. If this works for you also, then we'll work on creating a shell script to add to your startup files. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else,

Well for some reason it loggs on automatically into user account but when I drop to console I logged in as Root. Anyways I did everything and it still seems to be buggered up. This might be a silly question but is there drivers for linux?? I looked on the Microcrap site but they have nothing to offer. So anyways yeah please get back to me if you got any other idea. Or we can do the shell script or something like you said.


Thanx

Yes, there are "drivers" for linux, they are often in the form of kernel modules, if you want to see them go to the /lib/modules dir and then cd to the 2.x.x dir and then browse from there. You need to understand though that the "driver" for this mouse is already on your box and most certainly Microsoft is not going to provide one for Linux in our lifetime, that would be helping their (albeit small) competition.

what do you mean by "drop to console"?, if you're running X and you want to go to a "real" console, type ctrl+alt+F2 and then login as root and begin typing, to get back to X, type ctrl+alt+F7, this is useful for playing DooM also .

When you go to your X-windows, does your mouse work the way it did with the up-down only stuff? If not, please use the setup you did before to get back to that point with this mouse. Next, let's check our usb driver, go to console and type lsmod and post everything on the line beginning with "usbcore" , for instance here's mine:

usbcore 58304 1 [usbmouse hid usb-uhci]

next, type grep -i -A 10 input /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and post the results, please, don't edit this file at this time.

as near as I can tell this problem is due to the order in which these modules (drivers) are loaded at bootup, my fix for this was to change the order by placing a small shell script in my /etc/X11/xinit.d directory, scripts in this directory get exec'd when you "startx" or "xinit". You may have a different usb driver than mine, (mine is using usb-uhci), if you post the results of those commands above I can see if that's the case. Also, when you are at a "true" console, meaning you logged out of KDE (or typed ctrl-alt+bkspace), type /etc/init.d/gpm start and see what the textmode mouse acts like, see if it does the same thing as the X-windows mouse.

Just so you know I have to send you these messages through windows cause with no mouse I have no idea how to get out of the text box window and tab over to the submit button lol. So anyways here is it I just printed it and now typed it.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/usbmouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection


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


I also tried the thing in command line and the mouse is wrong there too. So anyways I will stay up as long as I can to see what you think the problem is. And once again thanx so much for helpin me with this.

Oh yeah the other thing too

usbcore 58304 1 [hid usbmouse printer usb-uhci]

there now I think I got all the info

this line appears to be wrong:
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents" #wheelmouse

it should read:
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
if you're comfortable with editing the file it's /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
make a backup of it before editing, for instance if you're in a Konsole type kate /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and then use the save-as menu item to save it under a different name somewhere you can easily find it so you can restore it if needed. When finished be careful to make sure you save it back to the correct dir (/etc/X11) and with the correct name: XF86Config-4. Then, exit the X system with a ctrl-alt-backspace. once you get a prompt, type startx to get back to it.

when you've fixed the XF86Config file and are back in KDE, if your mouse is still funny (and it probably will be), try typing a ctrl-alt-F2, you don't need to be in a console, you can type this from anywhere, this will take you to a login screen, no need to log in, just type ctrl-alt-F7 to take you back to KDE, tell me if this helps anything.

when you're back in KDE and your mouse is still funny, open up a Konsole and type these commands in this exact order:

modprobe -r printer usbmouse hid usb-uhci

insmod hid
insmod usbmouse
insmod usb-uhci

wait a few seconds and try the mouse. if it's still funny repeat the ctrl-alt-F2 and ctrl-alt-F7 thing again. i'm intentionally leaving the printer out of this so we can be sure it's not related to this.

also, you should be able to tab your way out of these text boxes. then use the enter key or space bar to push the buttons.

OH MAN !!!


It works and when you log out of regular user and log on as root in KDE everything works including the printer. So I take it that when I did the insmod commands it automatically updated everything on the fly and saved it??

Now all I have to do is figure out how Samba works but there is a girl in my class who seems to use nothin but linux who is supposed to help with that I guess

But yeah man thanx a lot now my baby is complete!

well, your XF86Config-4 has been saved, but the modules business has not, read on.

this stuff we've been doing is *not* a permanent fix. This has just been a test. If you shutdown or reboot you're most likely going to be back to the misbehaving mouse.

I've just done some serious browsing of the Mandrake forums and I've tested this on one of my machines here, what you need to do to make this fix permanent is to open the file /etc/modules and edit it by adding one line to it containing the word "hid", without the quotes, there may be a number of lines there already, all beginning with the # sign, after them add that line. then, whenever you shutdown or reboot things should work.

here is what my /etc/modules looks like:

# /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.
hid

I added the last line, the one that says "hid", you'll need to do the same and save the file. that should do it. remember to make a backup of your XF86Config-4 file.

for samba questions (if your classmate girl can't help you, and I hope she can, sounds like fun ) you should first search here on samba and then if you can't find the answer post in the software forum.

PS: The mouse does not survive a suspend/resume, I'm still looking into why, the workaround is that after a resume from suspend, I have to do the ctrl-alt-F2 and then the ctrl-alt-F7, then it's back.

Well man the edited file works great, you were right the mouse went wrong as soon as I restarted but now she works great. Well this girl who is helpin me is a classmate with a husband and a kid lol but she has been pushing me to get off of windows for a long time now. But she getts all excited about doin this stuff so it might fun anyways lol. So thank so much and is there anyway I can get a hold of you again if there is somehting I can't absoluty figure out??

Thanx again eh !