[olug] Debian forgets my mouse

Dan Linder dan at linder.org
Wed Jun 18 20:53:19 UTC 2008


Hi,

I'll second JohnH's idea for a reboot - PS/2 hot-plugging is flaky and prone
to hardware errors. :-(

If you can't do that, or it doesn't work, what happens if you run "cat
/dev/psaux" and then move the mouse?  When you do that as root you will get
a lot of jibberish each time the mouse is moved.

If you don't get the output, then it could be the drive (or mouse or PS/2
port or...).  Try running the same test command on the various /dev/input/*
devices (mice, mouse0, mouse1,...) and see if any of those work.

If you do get the jibberish output from one of those devices, it could be
the X11 config got munged and the mouse section was changed.  Most X11
configurations use "/dev/input/mice" rather than "/dev/psaux" since the
"mice" option combines all mice devices into a single unified device access
point.  Look for that section of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf and post it to the
mailing list (please, not the entire xorg.conf file).

Dan

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Mike Hostetler <hostetlerm at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello -- longtime subscriber, seldom poster.
>
> I have a older box (PII 400!) running Debian.  I use the PS2 Aux for my
> mouse.   I had the mouse working fine in X, but then upgrade the kernel via
> "apt upgrade" and now I can't get the mouse to be recognized at all. The
> psmouse module is loaded, but no luck in getting it to move. I've used
> dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg to reconfigure my X setttings but it asks
> nothing about the mouse.  Manually editing "/dev/psaux" or
> "/dev/input/mice"
> into the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file also doesn't work.  And I see nothing when
> doing "cat  /dev/psaux" and move the mouse.  Same as "cat /dev/input/mice"
>
> All the above was given after much googling and hair-pulling.  To me, my
> system doesn't know the mouse is there.  Anyone on how to get this to work?
>
> --
> Mike Hostetler
> http://mike.hostetlerhome.com/
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>



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