On Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 01:10:16PM +1100, Simon Wong wrote:
<snippage>
> The mouse itself works fine and all 3 buttons work okay but the
> scroll-wheel does nothing.
>
> I have also tried to use the IMPS/2 mouse driver but that results in an
> unusuable mouse (pointer jumps all over the place when I move the
> mouse).
>
> I am using X 4.1.0-13.
>
> Has anyone got any suggestions as to what else to try?
The way I understand it, when first powered up all ps/2-type
pointing devices act as if they are just basic ps/2 mice (for
compatibilty reasons). It is then the job of a special mouse driver
to initialize the mouse as an intellimouse, etc. in order to make the
extended features available.
The problem with this under Linux is usually gpm. It's possible
for two programs to both share a ps/2 mouse device, but the first one
to open it will be the only one to initialize it -- this would be gpm
if you are running it.
So if gpm thinks your mouse is a plain ps/2, then a plain ps/2 it
will be. When X tries to treat it like an intellimouse, it will
enterpret things all wrong, and your pointer will jump all over the
place (your mouse has an identity problem :-)
Some people simply turn off gpm to prevent this, but I *like*
gpm -- it's nice to be able to click on links when running links(1) on
the console. Setting both gpm.conf and X to agree on the mouse type
should fix this (gpmconfig is your friend).
But I've had better luck (with intellimice and clones) setting X
to use /dev/gpmdata as the pointer device. I use gpm's 'raw' repeater
type, and the IMPS/2 X mouse driver (*not* the IntelliMouse driver,
which is different for I don't know why.) Set up this way, the mouse
pointer doesn't 'skip' under X when the mouse is moved fast.
--
Joseph Fannin
jhf@rivenstone.net
"Bull in pure form is rare; there is usually some contamination by data."
-- William Graves Perry Jr.
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