intermittant mouse

[PatrickRay007]

I've just installed Suse 10 on my thinkpad, and since I can NOT seem to get my pointing stick to work (it just randomly goes nuts and flies all over God's green earth clicking on random buttons all the while) I bought a little usb mouse. This mouse is a Micro Innovations mouse for laptops, and it works great when I plug it in. However, about ten minutes later it will randomly just stop working then start again, then it gradually gets worse until it just doesnt even work at all. All of this goes away when I reboot, however, and it will work great for the first 10 minutes I use my computer. Then it starts acting up again. System is: IBM Thinkpad R31 model 2656-HU2. Anybody got any ideas on this one? This is the first time I've found a Linux distribution that I have been throroughly satisfied with, and the mouse is the only problem I have right now, so I'm really excited to get this one fixed and start enjoying this new distro. :D

[je_fro]

what does the mouse section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf say?

[PatrickRay007]

Here's what the Mouse section says:


Section "InputDevice"
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "PS/2 Generic Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
EndSection

BTW, I went and bought one of those USB optical Mini-Mouses from Micro-Innovations, and it randomly stops working too. I did find an old USB mouse from a company called Kensington that works really well and hasn't stopped working on me yet. Only problem I have with this one is that it's kinda big and I have to carry it around with my laptop to use it...
I'm not complaining though. Other than that, I'm having ZERO problems with my new OS.

[je_fro]

Try changing your Protocol to this:

Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

or maybe just


Option "Protocol" "PS/2"

[PatrickRay007]

Neither option worked, unfortunately.

Got any other ideas?

I've googled my heart out, and haven't found much help.
Perhaps someone here has some other insights...


-PR

[je_fro]

well I've got a thinkpad T20 with the following in xorg.conf
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

[bwkaz]

Under kernel 2.6, /dev/input/mice always uses the ExplorerPS/2 protocol. See, for instance:

http://lwn.net/Articles/69107/

;)

The problem here may be that the kernel might not fully support whatever this mouse's native protocol is. Or, it might be related to the "double device" issue (where people used both /dev/psaux and /dev/input/mice), though I think that's probably doubtful.

[PatrickRay007]

Problem:
~~~~~~~~

When I switch my KVM, my PS/2 mouse goes all crazy.

Solution:
~~~~~~~~~

Use psmouse.proto=bare on the kernel command line, or proto=bare on the
psmouse module command line.


:confused:

I'm not so sure I know what KVM is, but my PS/2 mouse sure is going crazy.

So, how do I get to the "psmouse module command line"? I tried sudoing "psmouse.proto=bare" and it gave me that command not found message. I must be doing something wrong... Any tips?
I'll keep playing with it in the meantime.

Thanks for the link, btw. Hopefully with a tad more help I can finally get this bugger working.

PR

[bwkaz]

KVM is Keyboard-Video-Mouse -- basically it's a box that has plugs for three keyboards, three mice, and three VGA connectors. They allow you to either connect one keyboard, mouse, and display device to two computers, or connect two keyboards, mice, and display devices to one computer. (Though the latter setup is rather useless, the former setup is useful if you have one headless box that needs a keyboard and video once in a while.)

Basically, you use a switch on the KVM box to designate which computer the keyboard, video, and mouse will be hooked up to. Some KVMs don't work well with the Linux psmouse driver, so the mouse goes crazy when you use the KVM to switch away from the computer and then switch back. If you run into that, this module parameter (or kernel parameter) might help. You're not using a KVM, so it probably won't help.

But, I suppose it can't hurt. First you'll have to figure out whether your distro has psmouse set up as a kernel module or built right into the kernel. You can find out by doing a grep psmouse /proc/modules -- if that comes back with anything, then psmouse is a module. If not, it's built right in.

If psmouse is a module, then try (as root):

/sbin/modprobe -r psmouse # this unloads the driver; your mouse will stop working at this point
/sbin/modprobe psmouse proto=bare # this re-loads it, using the right parameter

and see if that works any better. If it does, then add this line to your /etc/modprobe.conf file:

options psmouse proto=bare and that will make the change permanent.

If psmouse is not a module, then you'll have to edit your bootloader. I am going to assume you use grub; most distros seem to nowadays. In /boot/grub/menu.lst (grub's config file), find the stanza that corresponds to your kernel. At the end of the "kernel" line, add a space, and then the following:

psmouse.proto=bare

Then save, exit, and reboot. You shouldn't get an error, but if you do, you can use grub's boot line editing capabilities to remove the psmouse.proto=bare part so that you can at least boot. (If you get an error, post it.)