I mistakenly posted this on the Distro Area. Here goes again where it belongs.

back to missing mouse and other things

I have made some progress in my learning what is going on so here is an update.

The reason the mouse does not work on post install boot(even though it is present during install and even tests good duing install) is that install is not assigning interrupt to mouse. This is evidenced by vim /proc/interrupt. Now, what do I do? I tried to edit the file and add interrupt 12 to mouse but the file is read only and chmod does not seem to change it to write permission.
other problem. Install sets up resolution on graphics card to high and card runs out of memory, therefore the X does not run right if at all. Where and how can I change it to 256 colors instead of 16 million. I did once get install to do that right but now lost it again.

/proc is a virtual filesystem (it lives in RAM) which only reports information related to your current system configuration. You can't alter the contents of /proc directly.

I'm not sure how to hard-assign an IRQ to the mouse, sorry. If I can dig anything up I'll repost. What type of meece is it: ps/2, bus mouse, etc.?

As for the bit-depth, you can go to Mandrake Control Center->Hardware->Display and alter it there.

<stupidity edit>
D-oh!
If you can't get into X, you can't use Mandrake Control Center. (note to self: read the post before appplying fingers to keyboard)

From the command prompt, try "startx -- -depth 8" for X 4.x or "startx -- -bpp 8" for X 3.3.6 (I think that's the syntax) to get into X at a bit-depth that your card is happy with, then do the Mandy Control Center thing.
</stupidity edit>

Thanks for the reply:

Mouse is standard 2button serial on com1 in dos lingo.
I think IRQ 12?

since I have no mouse and no graphics can't get to control center!

both must be somewhere in init or proc during boot.

If i start x system either loads and hangs or just sits at console and blinks as it tries to start x but gets video failure

OK, we were posting at the same time, so I guess this post qualifies as another "stupidity edit".

Try my last post's suggestion for just starting X at a low bit-depth.

As for the mouse, if you mean that it's an old beastie that connects to a COM port via a 9-pin D connector, as opposed the ps/2 flavor which uses a circular mini-DIN connector, you might want to read though this HOWTO and also read the man pages or online docs for the "setserial" command. I haven't had to do this myself, but it sounds like it might help in your situation.

Thanks,
will dig in today. Maybe you pointed me in the right direction.

Com ports usually use irq 3 and 4 (I think it's irq 3 for the even numbered com ports and irq4 for the odd numbered com ports), and you should be able to set, or at least check, that in the BIOS. Irq 12 is used for the ps/2 ports if I'm not mistaken.

I do think you are right on the IRQ's. Just came to the same conculsion this AM. 03F8 address, IRQ 4 for the COM1 port.

Normally I avoid replying with this kind of reply, but since you mentioned you used vim, you might just want to hand hack the XF86Config file in /etc/X11. There's a simple section for mice that should have something like:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
EndSection
(does anyone offhand know exactly what should ber in the option "Protocol" "???" for a bus mouse?

Also, in this I've just got a simlink from /dev/mouse to /dev/psaux, because I've got a PS/2 mouse. Yours is going to be /dev/ttyS?, but that leaves like 20 something possibilities.

The other problem... the color crash:

Also in the file is going to be a screen section, at the end that will look like:

Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16

SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600"
ViewPort 0 0
Your Default Depth is probably set to 24, knock it back to 16 and you should be okay, but make sure there is a valid subsection for depth 16.

The brilliant thing about distros like Mandrake is that you almost never have to hand hack an XF86Config file. The bad thing is that you always do if this is an older machine, which I assume it is from the bus mouse.

Also, the XFree that Mandy 8.1 shipped with has a cool auto-configure utility that it actually used during that setup process. If you try:

./usr/bin/XFree86 -configure

The screen will go blank a couple of times and then spit out a line that it created a test file in the /root/ dir and tell you the command to try and use it... hopefully that will nail your mouse.

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks!

I will look at that soon. in the meantime I got my hands on RH 6.0. Seems all my problems were Distro vs Hardware. The RH installed flawslessly in about 20 min. with no problem!!

I have other drives so I will put the Mandy back online and look at that though. looks like some good info.