Hello everyone,

I recently bought a very old Thinkpad T30 on which I installed Wolvix Hunter (Slack-based). The laptop does not have one of those fancy touch-pads younger machines are equipped with, but just a ball in the middle of the keyboard.

The problem is that the ball is defect and the cursor goes crazy all over the screen.

I tried adding an external PS/2 mouse, hoping that it would override the built-in one, but it is not the case: both mice are recognized and the problem persists. I have no USB port and no serial mouse at hand to try with so I have to stick with the PS/2 one.

I tried playing around with xorg.conf a bit, but the built-in mouse is PS/2 as well, so I cannot get to disable the one in favor of the other - they are always recognized together.

I am looking for a way to disable the built-in mouse so that I can simply use the external one. I have been looking on the Internet and on other forums, but similar questions were not answered even in newbie-friendly sites like ubuntu's.

So can someone out there give me a hint on how to disable the laptop built-in mouse?

Thank you very much for your help,

dschiavon

The trackpoint - this is the name of the "ball in the middle of the keyboard" - should be automatically disabled when you connect an external PS/2 mouse. First you can check the keyboard/mouse settings in the BIOS: it should be Automatic or AutoDisable.

Someone reported to switch to a virtual console if the trackpoint is not disabled and then return to X, for example by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then Ctrl-Alt-F7. Or you can try to restart the X window system by Ctrl-Alt-Del. Hope this helps.

Hi Colucix, thank you for your reply.

>The trackpoint - this is the name of the "ball in the middle of the keyboard" - should be automatically disabled when you connect an >external PS/2 mouse. First you can check the keyboard/mouse settings in the BIOS: it should be Automatic or AutoDisable.

Hmm... I tried that: when I enter the BIOS it just gives me a error message and then gives me the possibility to test all the different devices, but not the possibility to modify it in any way. i guess I need to install a newer version, but as long as I cannot connect it to the Internet it is not possible. Internet connection is on his way, but my provider isn't exactly renowned for its administrative leanness.

>Someone reported to switch to a virtual console if the trackpoint is not disabled and then return to X, for example by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then Ctrl-Alt-F7. Or you can try to restart the X window system by Ctrl-Alt-Del. Hope this helps.

I tried Ctrl-Alt-F1 and Ctrl-Alt-F7 and I went in and out of X a number of times but no joy ...

I think the nicest way to fix this would be to change the BIOS settings, which I cannot do at the moment.

Second best option would be to find a serial mouse or an adapter and enable it in xorg.conf. I guess I will go for this one, though serial mice have got a lot harder to find than in my college years ...

Thnaks though!

dschiavon