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List:       gentoo-desktop
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-desktop] Mouse goes crazy
From:       "M. Edward Borasky" <znmeb () cesmail ! net>
Date:       2004-12-31 19:50:09
Message-ID: 1104522625.5185.13.camel () DreamGate
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On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 10:02 -0600, Lindsay Haisley wrote:
> I have two computers with monitor/kbd/mouse switched via a KVM switch.  One
> is an old Win95 box with some legacy apps on it that I need to use, and the
> other is my Gentoo desktop box.  I've noticed an annoying problem since I
> switched to a 2.6 kernel on the Gentoo box.  
> 
> When I switch to the Win95 box everything works OK, but when I switch back
> to the Gentoo box, it totally misinterprets the mouse, moving the pointer
> wildly all over the screen and entering mouse clicks where I made none.  I
> can fix the problem by unplugging the mouse from the KVM input and
> re-plugging it.  This also happens if I switch the KVM switch to an unused
> channel and back, so it's not really a Win95 issue, but apparently a matter
> of initializing the mouse in Linux.
> 
> This never used to happen w. a 2.4 kernel, so I _think_ it may have
> something to do with Linux.  I'm wondering if there's some way to normalize
> the mouse after switching it back to the Linux box so that this happens
> automatically and without my having to remember to do something explicitly.
> 
> I haven't tried another mouse, but this one (Logitech optical 3 btn wheel
> mouse) works fine, basically.  I haven't tried another KVM switch since I
> only have one.  My xorg.conf Pointer setup is:
> 
>     Option "Protocol"           "ImPS/2"
>     Option "Device"             "/dev/input/mouse0"
>     Option "Buttons"            "5"
>     Option "ZAxisMapping"       "4 5"
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas about this?  The only reason I ask is that this
> didn't used to happen and something, possibly the kernel version, has
> changed the setup so that the mouse is managed differently.

I had the same mouse/KVM problem with an earlier 2.6 kernel and xorg. I
don't remember exactly the versions involved; my Gentoo system was
unusable with 2.6 and I rather rapidly dropped back to 2.4 to be able to
function. I have since rebuilt the system in question with 2004.3 and it
is currently running just fine with the latest xorg, gentoo-dev-sources,
KDE and enlightenment with no special attention paid to mouse settings. 

When I configure X, I do it thusly:

1. Bring the system up in command line mode as root.
2. Type "X -configure" to attempt an automatic configuration detection.
3. Edit the resulting "~root/xorg.conf.new" to supply monitor
sync/refresh settings and the "Modes" definition in the Screen section.
4. Copy the edited file to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"

and bring up X. Aside from those early abortive attempts with 2.6, this
has always worked fine. Incidentally, my mouse is an ancient Digital
3-button non-wheel mouse, and the KVM switch is a 2-port Belkin.
> 


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