Mouse Problems with Knoppix and ubuntu
 

Hey y'all;

newbie here; I simply loved the look and feel of Knoppix 2.XX running live on my Dell "Latitude", Pentium III, 256-k ram machine. I had also gotten a copy of ubuntu, so I loaded that on a 10 gig partition of my HDD. I have since learned that Knoppix uses KDE and ubuntu uses Gnome. Be this as it may, Booting ubuntu from my HDD went smoothly enough, but the mouse pointer jumps all over the screen, and/or jams in the corner and won't be moved by my efforts with the PS/2 wheel mouse.

So I got new version of knoppix 4.xx (I thought I might eventually run it from my HDD) and running THAT live has nearly the same effect as running ubuntu from my HDD. The difference being that as long as I leave the PS/2 wheel mouse (actually optical) plugged into the mouse port in the back, I can use the touch pad; MOST OF THE TIME. If I un-plug the wheel mouse, then the touch pad won't work and the mouse pointer jumps all over the screen. Plugging in the wheel mouse AFTER this has no effect. Sometimes, on a subsequent boots, neither device controls the pointer effectively.

The only version of linux that seems to work with my laptop is the older knoppix

It would seem that something to do with mouse drivers is not makeing to the "full monty". Any suggestions?

The mouse is defined within /etc/X11/xrog.conf on newer systems. Could you post your mouse section and the section on your touchpad?

I have a Compaq with a Synaptic touch pad and it uses a different protocol than my optical wheel mouse.

The wheel mouse - protocol=ImPS/2 and the touchpad; protocol=auto-dev. This is my Ubuntu breezy machine.

dont you mean /etc/X11/xorg.conf

check for your mouse in /dev and then add it to your X11's config, then restart X

Ooops... spell checker doesn't check brain checks....

Yes, it should be /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This sounds like really good advice,...but...Somehow I knew I would get useful tips on how to make command line tweaks. How and where, pray-tell, does one go about playing around with things like "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" and "protocol=ImPS/2 and the touchpad; protocol=auto-dev"?

Don't want to sound like a total newbie, but tell me once, and then I'll know too.

If y'all could give me a hint as to where and when one goes to make these changes, I would most greatful.


thanks

Phazon

Not sure where it is you are getting this information. I am guessing there is a command prompt type environmaent that I can get into to look around in the "guts" of the code, but I don't know how to do this. Would you mind giving step by step instructions on where to get this info?

Thanks for the come back

RL

Well, when the system is booting from a live Knoppix CD, I see a sentence scroll by that says

mouse is standard PS/2 wheel mouse at /dev/psaux

Does this mean anything to you?

I am starting to pickup on the way to effect and change this stuff.

Apparently, at the boot: prompt when using Knoppix, I can enter cheat codes that might help with several things. Perhaps this is where I could put in something that helps.

Also, after the GUI has loaded, using Kubuntu live, and or Knoppix live, and can go to bash and type some stuff in thee.

Don't know much more at this time.


I have been able to load a live version of kubuntu that allows me to use my touchpad with no problem, but does not even see the PS/2 wheel mouse plugged into the machine. At least the pointer does not fly all over the screen....

I suspect that my mouse ports/hardware is a little iffy too. When ever I move the pointer, I can hear a "...zzzzZZZzzzz..." sort of electrical noise coming from around the hot-swap cdrw drive area. I used to get the same problem with win98. When using 98, if I pulled out the hot-swap cdrw drive and plugged it back in, the mouse would start to behave again for awhile. After switching to XP, things seemed to self heal. I never get these mouse/touch pad issue while using XP. I have to say, when linux first started raising eyebrows, it was in the win98 era. Since then, XP seems to have addressed a lot of these issues, and almost anticipates these kinds of problems. I have yet to see how linux is so superior and more stable. I like linux so far, when it works. I think it has potential, but XP never throws my pointer all over the screen and I am able to use touch pad and wheel mouse alternately on the fly.

Hmmmm....

O.K. let me see if I can point you in teh right direction. The first thing you need to understand is linux looks at disks and folders in a differen way than any flavour of windoze.


The disks... First hard drive is know as hda and the first partition will be hda1, assuming it is a primary partition. If I use a term you don't understand, like primary partition, this one is common to all os's since dos. The second drive will be hdb, the third hdc etc.

Partition numbers go up by one... almost unless they are a primary partition. This makes the story more difficult. We have to track primary parts... so the second primary will be 2, regardless of the disk it is on. The extended parts are numbered after the primarys. So, if you had a dorve with 1 disk, with one primary and 2 parts on an extended part, you would have hda1, hda5 and hda6. ( 2,3, and 4 are for primarys ). Sounds messy, but not bad once you get the hang of it. Notice no more 'c drive and d drive...'

Now for the file system in linux. It looks at all partitions as one large file system, as if they were on one disk. In reallity they can be spread over several disks, even the network. Everything starts from the root, show as the forward slash character '/'. A folder in the root will show up there; such as bin, and would be typed as /bin. Notice the slash. So to get to get to /etc/X11 ( watch, case sensitive ) you would do a cd /etc and press enter, then type X11 ( no slash ) press enter and you would be in the correct directory. If you did another cd / ( enter key) that would take you back to the root. Try it, it works...

So, the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf is in the path from the root of etc/X11. It is a plain text file and can be edited with a program like vi or (my favorite gedit) there are lots more.

Yes it does, this is the driver loading to run your mouse. If you look in /etc/X11/xorg.conf you will see a mouse section, with a protocol= parameter, and I would expect it to be 'pasux'

Is this mouse plugged into the USB port or into the ps/2 port? This matters a lot as to why this is not operating properly. I saw this bug once on my old Compaq when I had a USB wheel mouse plugged in, and had the PS/2 port driver loaded.

As far as your comments on stability, linux is far more stable, ie you can go years and never boot.(Large corporations do this all the time). You can add hardware, boot once, configure, and use it. Try that with windoze.

There is a steep learning curve with linux. Is it worth the effort??? Only you can decide that for your self.

Sentences like this just roll your tongue I can tell, but you keep saying "enter",....where"? Where is it that all of these xxx/xxx/xxx commands are being entered? Imagine you are me sitting in front of a KDE or GNOME GUI, and I you are being told..."just type xxx/xxx/xxx and push enter...". Where is this to be done?

Do you see my dilemma?

it's defenitely "psaux". Is this the problem, or one of them? If so, why hasn't this been addressed in the past. Can it be fixed after it loads?

Where would this be done?

The mouse is plugged into the PS/2 port. I might have suspected a usb mouse to be better, but maybe not now that you have sadi this about yours. hmmmm

side note: Stability? Well, I have pulled out my cdrw drive (which seems to be a usb connection becasue I get that "tong" noise from the speakers when I pull it out) and put it back in on the fly whle using xp, and it will work fine. If I do that while running any version of linux, it just "goes" away, never to return as usable until the next boot up....

OK, now it's getting even more ineteresting. I just tried fooling aroung with a live version of "Damn Small Linux" running off of mr cdrw drive. Wow. Brillliant looking. smooth, flawless perfromance. This is apparently based on Knoppix, but only barely resembles any other KDE GUI that I have seen.

Best part of all, it loads my mouse AND touch pad perfectly and I can use either at any time - flawlessly.

So,.....what does DSL have that the others don't? I wonder what command is used during boot up that could be incorparated in the other ones.

I'm beggining to wonder if I got a bum download on some of these.


hmmmm

I tried the live version of Kubuntu because the install iso failed to install the entir package. some files were corrupted I guess. I tried downlaoding the iso from antoher site and seem to have gotten a good one. I just installed Kubuntu on a partition, and it runs fine. I am able use the touch pad without problems, but it does not see the ps/2 mouse; same as the Kubuntu live version.

I am guessing that with the HDD versin of Kubuntu I am running now, I can change something in the boot-up so that it will give me use of my mouse and touch pad - like the wonderful way that the live versin of Damn Small Linux does. I supppose I need to find out what DSL is doing right, put that in the start up of Kubuntu, and bingo, pefect linux. Ya!

I have to say, I am disappointed that Kubunut has no games...

This is all done in a console. If you are running KDE, look for an icon labeled "Konsole" When you click it, you will get a command prompt. Type the stuff in there. When I sue the term enter, it means press the enter key. That causes the system to process the command string you have typed.