Mouse not responding...

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I have been using Red Hat Linux for a while, and have had 7.1 on my system for a while now. I just bought a new HDD, and decided this was the perfect opportunity to format everything and have a clean start - I know I've gathered a lot of trash I am not really using, so this way I could clean it all up at once.

Well, I put in my 7.1 CD and reinstalled, and nothing was unusual here. Installation complete, system rebooted, login, startx...my mouse did not work. I have a 2 button Microsoft serial mouse and have not had any problems with it before. I have tried different ports, tried setting it up as both a Microsoft and generic mouse, but nothing has worked. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

As I said, the only difference to my system is a second HDD, but I often swapped HDDs in and out before (I hate using floppies) and not had any troubles; never reinstalled Linux at the same time either, but I'd not have thought that would cause a problem. I have used this particular Mouse with Red Hat for over 3 years now, so I am totally lost.

[Radar]

What does the "input device" section of your /etc/X11/XF86Config[-4] have in it?

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day Radar,
__________

# from /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Protocol" "Microsoft"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
__________

Thanks!

[smokybobo]

Does /dev/mouse exist?

If it does, is it a symlink?

If yes, what does it point to?

For a serial mouse, it should be either /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/ttyS1

Also, since you have a 2 button mouse, I don't think you need the ZAxisMapping option to map the z-axis to buttons 4 and 5....

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day Smokybobo,

mouse is a symlink: /dev/mouse -> /dev/ttyS1 - this is what it should be for my setup. I tried changing the link in case something funny was going on, but it didn't work on other serial ports either.

Also, since you have a 2 button mouse, I don't think you need the ZAxisMapping option to map the z-axis to buttons 4 and 5....

This was added by the installation, not by me; should I comment it out, or is it unlikely to do anything?

Thanks!

[nuisance]

Are you sure the protocol is supposed to be 'microsoft'? I have seen other entries for serial mice use 'IntelliMouse', 'Auto' or 'MouseSystems'. Sorry, not more of a help here.

[smokybobo]

Originally posted by nuisance
Are you sure the protocol is supposed to be 'microsoft'? I have seen other entries for serial mice use 'IntelliMouse', 'Auto' or 'MouseSystems'. Sorry, not more of a help here.

Looking at the mouse page in the xfree 4.x docs, I would agree.

This page has info on the various settings one can use for the mouse protocol:

http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/mouse6.html

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I notice that all mice listed had Auto as an option; I tried that earlier today (before seeing these protocol), suspecting it may help, but there was no change: I reboot (just in case that is required) and there was still no mouse response when I went to X.

[@apje]

hms..
i don't have any problems with it know,
but about a year ago i tried to install redhat too (formatted same day, gave too much problems).
But my mouse didn't work neither...
what i did was on startup keep moving my mouse around and keep clicken... then in X it did work...
i know, not a very good solution :) but it did work...
might give it a try?

[fancypiper]

You have the setup utitity which has a mouse configuration utility you could use.

The Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" is for a wheel or "intellimouse", I think. That will make it act strangely if you don't have a wheel.

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I gave that mouse-wiggling a try - it would be better than nothing - but did not seem to help in my case. With the ZAxisMapping, I removed it the moment I heard what it was - clearly it could not be helping me, but it did not seem to hinder me either.

I have just tried reinstalling again, but that did not seem to change anything, so I guess I did not make any errors there. The odd thing is that it works find in installation, but the moment I boot up after that it stops.

[fancypiper]

Did you run the mouse configuration in the setup utility? That would let me fix my services, mouse, x sound, etc.

As root in command linesetup

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I had run setup before: when you fresh install, the device is listed as /dev/ttyS#, and the mouse symlink is made (and added to XF86Config-4) by mouseconfigure.

However, it's fixed now. What did I do? I suspected the problem was that I *had* been using mouseconfigure, and that there were two copies of the mouse configureation - one being resynced off the other on boot. Well, with a little exploring, I've found everything I needed.

I modified /etc/sysconfig/mouse to reflect the settings of my mouse while simultaniously editing /etx/X11/XF86Congig-4 to reflect identical settings. I then changing the mouse symlink (mouse configure did not seem to, regardless what port I had it in) to get around this issue whole. Reboot, and finally there was a mouse response.

Thanks for the help: without the information here, I'd never have found these files, not least figured this out and have my system working properly again.