PS2 Mouse Problem in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
 

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I have neither added or taken away anything on my computer except for the usual regular updates from Ubuntu and now my mouse is causing problems. The mouse has become "jerky" even bouncing around the desktop at times. It's become extremely annoying because I know the mouse itself is working fine as I also have WindowsXP pro on another partition where the mouse works perfectly. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Help will be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
Gael.

Just to test, run the live cd and see. My guess is it would be stable. But before I went to far just check that maybe.

Hi, I ran the live CD and everything worked perfectly well ... I also uninstalled the mouse by typing sudo rmmod psmouse from the command line, followed by sudo modprobe psmouse. Sadly, it didn't fix the problem as the mouse still freezes. :(
Do you have any thoughts as to a solution as to what this may be?

I used to get that phenonenom while using PC-BSD my soulution from a Slackers perspective was... use a USB mouse. hopefully someone with a bit more knowledge will point you in the right direction...in the meantime you can try to see what the difference is between your live Ubuntu and the hard drive one,thats one reason I don,t use Ubuntu much,its because they don,t use an xorg.conf,if they did you could compare the live one with the hard drive one... good luck !

ps you could also search the threads with something like "mouse problem" etc

pps I have a ps2 and a USB mouse both working on this system.

I guess by the few responses that nobody has an answer to this problem ... so, I went about trying a few things myself. Bear in mind that I am not very technical, in fact I could be referred to as a Linux Ludite. Firstly, I tried another PS2 mouse and got the same result ... not the mouse then! Next I typed in the Terminal; sudo rmmod psmouse ... and then sudo modprobe psmouse ... that also had no real solution. Next I typed sudo rmmod psmouse ... and then rebooted the computer ... nope, still the same. I then bought a cheap USB mouse and tried that ... the problem was still there. Getting frustrated now, I plugged in both the USB mouse and the PS2 mouse at the same time and the problem mysteriously disappeared. In conclusion, I have absolutely no idea why having 2 mouses plugged in at the same time should "cure" this irritating problem ... nor do I care, the main thing is is that it appears to have fixed the problem. If any of you techies can come up with the answer, someone could perhaps create a patch / fix that would stop this problem once and for all.

I hope that is of some help to others who experience this kind of problem of the "jerky, freezing mouse".

Have a nice day,
Gael.

Well gael33 you did it by empirical means and an odd suggestion,the main thing is you kept trying and eventually got a result,now as time goes by you can continue to discover things and maybe you will get lucky and find the answer you are looking for...... "The best things in life are free and always will be. good luck. !

Thanks for that Hugh, and how fitting. I am in the process of buying a house in a little place called Torrance ... it seems our destinies were meant to cross :)

My brother Frank lives in East Kilbride... LOL

ps about 50% of the times I fix something I cant really say what it was that done it... so patience and persistence are to be valued.

ps you should mark this thread as solved.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - PS2 mouse or USB mouse not working
 

sorry for reviving this old thread, but I came across this problem while upgrading to 10.04 LTS. This thread is labled as [solved] but plugging in 2 mice isn't really a solution. Nevertheless, I tried it and it didn't work. So the real solution that I found to this painful issue is really simple, the kernel is hosed. Take a look at Bug 735466, search google. The offending kernel for me was vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic-pae. 2.6.35-24-generic-pae didn't work for me either.

All I had to do is hold shift during boot up, so that the grub menu shows, and load kernel 2.6.32-32. Then to finally get rid of the offending kernels, just search google for "remove old kernels in ubuntu". I followed the one from tux tweaks.

tuxtweaks_DOT_com/2009/12/remove-old-kernels-in-ubuntu/

Wow! Well done you, that a fine bit of detective work. Sadly, it came to late for me as I have moved on to Natty Narwal (11.04) and the problem no longer exists, however, there will be some guys out there (including me) who will appreciate what you have achieved. I guess the problem now is definitely solved.
Thanks for that. :)