i have my system set up on a text-based login
i issued the startx command, everything looked ok
it loaded Gnome, and my mouse wouldnt work
hit ctrl+alt+f1
it went to that vterm, and it said
twice
tried rebooting, hoping that it might recognize it on a reload, no such luck
checked /dev, surealy enough, /dev/mouse wasnt there
i also have another question:
everytime i shut down, when i come back up, it tells me the filesystem was not cleanly unmounted, does a disk check, reboots, then i can login
im shutting down with
is this incorrect?
some help would be very nice, if i cant get mandrake to work, how the hell amd i ever gonna learn real linux when i go to slack or gentoo?

btw:
Dell Dimension 2400 stock, p4 2.66 ghz, integrated intel video, regular ps/2 scroll mouse

Well I'm not quite sure why you have no /dev/mouse file, it seems like mandrake would install this no matter what. Anyways there is a tool in /dev called makedev I believe, run that tool with one of these commands


sh makedev
./makedev

or maybe it is just

makedev

Not too sure how to use it, i've just repeatedly installed slackware and noticed it announces the makedev tool during the installation and its in my head now. :-) make sure you are in the right directory and it should run

after that you can either manually set a link from /dev/psaux (the PS/2 port) to /dev/mouse or you can just run one of these commands (not sure which one mandrake has)

xf86cfg
xf86config

shutdown -h now is the right command to shutdown, which partition is it checking?

PS: I have almost no experience with mandrake but it is either a really screwed up distro or it just installed wierd for you, did these things always happen? And while gentoo is the hardest darn thing on earth, slackware is a little easier in my opinion because you can select what gets installed and runs automatically a little easier than with Mandrake or SuSE, once you understand the first few weeks of linux go for slack to learn with.

The /dev/mouse is actually a link to /dev/psaux. Try creating the link /dev/mouse and see if it works. I too have Mandrake 9.2 and i dont have mouse control in the v terms

What does /etc/mnttab or /etc/fstab show?
Maybe there might be a clue over there. I think i have used the same command (I cant check right now as iam in office!)

no, this hasnt always happened
my mouse was working fine
it's jsut when i booted into mdk tonite
adn i have 2 ps/2 ports, keyboard and mouse
how do i link the appropriate one to my mouse
will this work:
and if it spews characters, i know that one's my mouse
but how do i link it to /dev/mouse?

Iam sorry i didnt read vdogvictor's post. Mandrake has got XF86config.

My post regarding the fstab and mnttab was wrt the shutdown problem (Getting on in years u c, thnk something and u hope that the guy on the other side heard u ; ) !!)

" ln -s /dev/psaux1 /dev/mouse " doesnt work ? I thought it should. Of course you should be root.

im sorry... havent tried...
didnt know the 'ln' cmd existed

The comand just creates the link to a file, thats all.
Do "man ln " and you will get all the info you want and of course lots that you dont want !

i tried
and got:
and i was root when attempting to do this
i tried this, after funning xf86config

anything else i might try?

Does /dev/psaux exist? If so, just edit /etc/X112/XF86Config-4 to use /dev/psaux rather than /dev/mouse.

It can't work any less than it already does, so worth a try.