Mouse won't work after 2.6 upgrade
 

Hi,

I recently installed Slackware 10.0 on my Dell Dimension 4400 (sysadmin at work doesn't want to use 10.1 for some reason), and I upgraded to kernel 2.6.7, from /testing on install cd #2.

Here's the problem: when I boot into 2.6.7 my mouse doesn't work in X (gnome). It doesn't work at all - no movement or anything. But when I boot into kernel 2.4.26 my mouse works fine!

Here'e my xorg.conf section:

As others on this list suggest I tried the different protocol options (Any, Microsoft, IMPS/2, PS/2) and tried changing "Device" to "/dev/psaux", although felt stupid doing this since /dev/mouse is a link to /dev/psaux.

I'm not sure where to look further since I' m a bit newbie to Linux and even more to Slackware.

Thanks,
Lantern

hi there

the problem is with your kernel
either the support is not there in that kernel for ur mouse or u need to load the modules urself

try
insmod psmouse

or built a kernel urself with the support in the kernel

regards

That worked! (Actually I used modprobe instead of insmod but whatever ... )

Is there a way to automatically load the psmouse module at boot time instead of having to do it manually with modprobe? Or is it better to recompile the kernel?

Thanks masand.

i have also faced this problem
and here are other modules which load automatically

so i prefer building my own kernel with those modules in the kernel

regards

That's a relief, thanks. I was beginning to wonder how bright my linux future looks if I couldn't even get the mouse to work! Thanks for your help.

But I do want to say ... the process of installing Slackware with 2.4.x then upgrading to 2.6.x was pretty annoying. The installer did a good job detecting my hardware, which explains why my mouse worked fine initially, but then my configuration went to hell with the upgrade. First I tried copying my .config file before building the 2.6 kernel, but when I ran make xconfig I got a huge list of errors regarding selections that didn't apply. I also tried make oldconfig but that didn't seem to be geared toward major upgrades (2.4 to 2.6) either. So I had to take a best guess with the configuration options. This of course was very tedious and way-too-bad considering that the installer had just done such a good job! Obviously I missed the psmouse option ...

So why hasn't Slackware released a version that gives you the option to install with 2.6.x in the first place?

Don't understand why you had issues with make oldconfig - I'm sure this is what I did and managed to get it working.
Aahhh - just re-read that quote of your post. Did you do a make mrproper ???. Best is always to clean up first. So after your initial problems with make xconfig, I would have tried make mrproper, copy .config, then make oldconfig, and answer the questions as they pop up.

I did try a /testing kernel,but it wouldn't fly. Easier to pull a current source tar and install it manually.
I made a similar comment on first install a couple of weeks ago, and got the standard "what's so great about 2.6 ???" line.

hi

slackware comes with a prebuilt 2.6 kernel
lookout in the testing directory

regards

No I missed that step ... maybe that was the problem.
Yeah I've heard that too. I did the upgrade because I needed better support for my network card. The upgrade improved things but I'm still having some trouble with my NIC. Here's a thread I have going about that issue, in case anybody has advice. Maybe I should have started that thread in this forum anyways (instead of Linux - Networking).
Thanks.
Lantern

That's meant to be installed with installpkg, right? I don't get why the generic kernel would work if it's not configured for my hardware, but I'll give it a shot.

i try out the generic kernel first and use that to build on my kernel

regards

As I said, I did try a /testing kernel, but it wouldn't work.
Being more comfortable building my own kernels I chose to go that way.

Each to their own.

you may put this in your /etc/rc.d/rc.local: