Yes, OK, I realize how silly the title sounds :-D

I have Slackware 12.1 in a laptop, and I have also an USB mouse (the touchpad sometimes is annoying and for games it is useless).

If the mouse is plugged before X is started, then it works just fine.
If I unplug it and plug it again, then it doesn't work anymore.

If I exit the graphic session and start it again, it will again work, so I'm sure this is a X setup problem.

(But I can't do it: if I go back to cli and do a telinit 3; telinit 4 KDE will not start anymore... it gets stuck on "loading desktop" step)

Anyway, I'm posting this in the Slackware forum because this thing was working fine when I was using OpenSuSE (few weeks until Slack 12.1 came out)

This are the relevant parts in my xorg.conf. Trying to fix this I have changed a lot of stuff, so if you see anything strange, that's the reason.


Please advice, oh Slackware overlords :-)

I'm no overlord but the /dev/input/by-id/usb-04d9_0499-mouse seems a bit strange to me.

Try to set to /dev/input/mice or /dev/input/mouse1

Well, reason behind this is pretty simple: I didn't know if the system was creating always the same device for this mouse (I tried looking at the input device files while connecting and disconnecting the mouse), I think it was not.

Actually I remember that sometimes it created the device as /dev/input/mouse2 and some other times it created it as /dev/input/mouse1.

So I went for the one I know will be always the same: the id. Of course if I replace the mouse, my xorg.conf will no longer work with the new one...

Thanks for the reply, I will again take a look at the device files

I'm no overlord either. Here's my two cents:

I don't know whether X continually scans for devices (hot plugging) or only when X is first started. Seems to me that as long as hald/dbus/udev are operational, they should notify X of any changes in the device list. With that said....

Use the lsusb command before and after unplugging the mouse. This command will provide a list of USB devices. You then can verify your system is recognizing the device after plugging in. If you unplug and then plug, and lsusb does not show the device thereafter, perhaps there is something wrong with hald/dbus/udev.

Siimilarly, with the mouse plugged in and functional, use the command line to list /dev/input/by-id. The mouse should be listed as well as a soft link. The link should be pointed to a device node such as ../mouse1. Although I think what you have in xorg.conf should work, try using that node (for example, /dev/input/mouse1) in your xorg.conf. When you unplug the mouse those entries should disappear.

Hopefully these tests at least provide a clue.

Hello Woodsman,
thank you for your comments, but I already did what you suggest.
The mouse is always being detected and setted up as /dev/input/mouse1.

I tried putting that device file as the "Device" in the xorg.conf file, but the results I get are the same.

Any other advice you can give me?

Hi,

i have read a bit about how the autodetection works in xorg. Please correct me if I'm wrong here:

1. As far as I know only the evdev driver supports this
2. evdev depends on hal.

So you could check this:

1. Verify you have installed the xf86-input-evdev-1.2.0-i486-1 package.
2. Verify you have hal installed and running (/etc/rc.d/rc.hal)
3. Try it with running hal. Maybe you have to switch your mouse driver to evdev.
4. Look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log and see what happens if you unplug and replug the mouse

Hope this helps.

Thanks dom83 again

1. Checked. The package is installed
2. Checked. HAL is running.
3. Done. Tried evdev and read its manual page. I tried different values for "Name", "Phys", "device" and all, with no results (some options didn't work, some others led me at the same point where I was)
4. He he, this is one step I was missing Anyway, I don't think this would be very useful:

Just a question guys: do any of you have a properly working USB mouse? I mean, only I am having this problem? Because I couldn't find anything in the net, everybody seems to have everything working fine (or they just don't care to plug/unplug their USB mice)

Too bad I didn't save the xorg.conf file OpenSuSE setted up


Regards.

You are not alone I have the same problem, but it's not that crucial for me to solve it. In Slackware 12.0 with the old x.org packages it worked, in 12.1 not. Although I'm using the evdev driver for it.

Mmmm that means my only option is to wait until there is a new release or a patch for the x server... too bad :-(

Anyway, thanks everybody for your help.


Regards,

Yesterday it funnily just started to work. Dunno why - I have two symlinks for different usb mice (both work wirelessly with an usb receiver), have installed a wacom graphic tablet and have installed all security updates for Slackware 12.1.
I expected it to not work of course. But after starting X I plugged the mouse in and voilà - now it moves again. Even unplugging it and plugging again in onto another usb port *without* restarting X is fine now.

I wanted to try some "trick" - plug the mouse in, then switch to virtual console 1, then switch back to the graphical console 7. xorg 1.5 does not have real hotplugging of input devices, but this is suggested for wacom tablets for example to get it recognized and working without restarting X. Maybe that's worth trying for you

Actually for me the problem "got resolved" when I upgraded to Slackware 12.2
A few problems still exist (like right Alt key, touchpad or ndiswrapper not working sometimes after rebooting) but 12.2 really improved the hardware detection.

Regards.

Nice to hear that you got it working, no matter how