Hi, having decided (after trying out Ubuntu successfully on my laptop) that I would dedicate my desktop to Linux Ihave spent 3 days having all kinds of fun loading versions of debian (stable and unstable). When I followed forum advice from all over on how to run the startx command all I got was a series of errors related to the mouse. Tried all fixes I could find but could not get in. Unplugged the mouse - no problems!!
Having read somewhere that SimplyMEPIS would boot straight into the GUI environment with full support I gave this a go, so after many hours of download I put the live CD in the drive and booted up. No problems getting to the GUI but still no life from the mouse.
The system I am trying to install on is an old Compaq Ipaq Legacy free which only supports USB mice and keyboards, I have had an unsuccessful search for any way to either control the desktop environmet without a mouse nor on how to configure MEPIS as it boots to allow use of this mouse!
Please please please could somebody help???

What sort of errors were you getting?

What sort of mouse do you have?

Do you see anything about a mouse in the dmesg output after boot (type "dmesg |grep -i mouse" in a shell).

Also, take a look in the xorg logfile (in the /var/log directory) and see if it mentions the mouse at all.

Thanks for response, will try to offer information I can.

Gave up on MEPIS and have reverted to Debian as I can get that to install and not just run from the live CD.

During install it gets to the xserver-xfree86 setup and I am getting a screen which asks to auto detect a mouse, answering yes to this results in the message;

keyboard:timeout no AT keyboard found (?)

Responding no takes me through to the configure mouse page and I am selecting /dev/input/mouse, as I believe this to be correct.
The mouse itself is a generic (under windows) usb optical scroll mouse made by Lyromedia, and which I have had working once in the past three days under the KDE GUI (after a reboot xstart failed to work and kept chucking me back to the command line or the mouse just refused to work at all)

During the setup screens I notice that it keeps flagging up;

Fontconfig error: Cannot load default config file

for the lines when setting up gsfonts and "vera"?

when typing in suggested code the message is

mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice

There is no xorg in /var/log

Any ideas as to where I am going wrong?

Had a look in XFree86.0 and this mentions -

Configured Mouse: Core Pointer
Option "Device" "dev/input/mice"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Configured Mouse: Emulate3Buttons, Emulate3Timeout: 50
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Configured Mouse: ZAxisMapping: buttons 4 and 5
Configured Mouse: Buttons: 5
XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Configured Mouse" (type: MOUSE)
Configured Mouse: ps2EnableDataRoporting: succeeded

Then there are several warnings along the lines of;

Warning: font renderer for ".pcf" already registered at priority 0

And

Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!

Hi, I would like to add my experience to the pot. I have been running Mandriva 7 successfully with just one occasion when the mouse 'seized up', i.e. on opening Linux it refused to respond. Reloading Mandriva from the DVD it returned to normal. I recently managed to make Linux seize up, not easily done, and had to reinstall it, since then no mouse activity. Repeating reinstall through the various option made no difference. Moving the mouse from PS2 to USB again made no difference. Windows hardly notice the change.

Sorry, this does not help your problem though they might be related. Hopefully some light will be thrown on the matter.

The mouse is an optical A4 Tech. So far I have managed to look at the various mouse settings to no avail.

Cheers, I live in hope.

KT

well i have fedora core 6 and my mouse froze have any answers for that?

If you are still having problems with the mouse try System > Configure Your Computer > Hardware > Set up pointer device and find your type of connection. Note that the scroll wheel counts as two buttons, so e.g. left and right buttons and a scroll wheel = four buttons; also you will know you have the correct connection because a test window will appear.