Is there a way to switch from the touchpad mouse to a 3-button ps2 mouse and back without having to logout every time?

Thanks,

BFK

i would think that that would be just like anything else....i personally don't think that is possible, i would have to relate that to the same question as, is there anyway to put a new video card in without shutting off the computer....the answer is no obviously...i think that would stand the same for a mouse....we'll see if someone will prove this wrong but i can't see it being possible, without at least logging out..

here is the way to do it covered in a diff. thread:http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=63577
for usb though but should give general idea

I used the setup from that thread, but I still need to logout before I can switch mice.

ok, can you put your distro, laptop make/model and your xf86config file and ill see what i can figure out, you may need to end up using usb mousr or usb adapter cause sometimes ps/2 switching doesnt work since touchpads generaly use ps/2 themselves

I'm runing redhat 9.0 on a Dell latitude CSx. The external serial mouse is a 3-button ps2 (I believe). The touchpad seems to be a two button ps2.

Here's the relevant part of XF86config

# XFree86 4 configuration created by redhat-config-xfree86

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Touchpad"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "DevInputMice"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Touchpad"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "DevInputMice"
Driver "mouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Protocol" "ps/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

Thanks,

BFK

Your PS2 mouse looks to be setup as a USB mouse (the /dev/input/mice is normally reserved for USB pointing devices). Does this mouse have a USB or PS/2 connector?

It's a ps2 connector. What shoud the device be then?

BFK

heh. Usually, it's /dev/psaux (or /dev/misc/psaux), the same as your integrated PS/2 pointer. As Brain Drop said, you're probably going to need to get a PS/2 to USB adaptor (or a true USB mouse) to get it to work correctly.

Here are the few changes I can see that you can make and then your mice should both work at the same time all the time:

Hope this helps I have highlighted the changes in red.

Let us know how it goes.

Niether mouse works with this configuration, and it takes a while for the x server to startup again. I also tried it with /dev/psmouse

Thanks,

BKF

My point was that you cannot have both PS2 mice running at the same time. The changes recommended by JayCnrs won't work. /dev/mouse is almost always a symbolic link to the /dev/psaux device, so you are trying to set two pointers to the same device. Setting the two devices to be the corepointer is also likely to confuse both.
I think the best option is to get a true USB mouse.