Pointer Trails on Desktop and Open Programs

[Art McClure]

I looked at most of the FAQ's and a number of forums, but could not find anything relevant to my problem. Using a PS/2 mouse, but I get pointer/cursor trails on the desktop and on open program windows. They go away if I refresh the desktop, but in open windows they may go away if I open a menu item, then again they may not. In OO the cursor leaves "black" marks all over the page, especially if I try to do any editing. If I open a menu item (such as <Edit-Select All>), the little black boxes disappear, most of the time. Other than that, Knoppix from the CD works great on my system, having configured, sound, video, network, etc. settings correctly. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Cuddles]

Art,

Unless you have "mouse trails" enabled, I think Knoppis has this, just like Windows, which, from your description, this is NOT mouse trails...

I think it may have something to do with your system.

I used to get "ghost" window screens, when I moved them around the screen, to fast - the system would "catch up" eventually, and the previous image would disapear, but it was a pain.

In my case, the processor wasn't the slow part (I have a 1.7 GHz AMD), the hard drive was a new "high RPM", so that wasn't the cause, it was my video. Having a "motherboard" mounted, shared memory, video card - was the slow down on my system...

Once I installed a "full-blown" video "card" - with its own processor, and its own memory, the problems went away...

Not having, or been given, any information on your system, I would guess this to be your problem...

You might be able to help, myself and others, out finding more answers, if you would post some system information:

(1) Knoppix (version, and if it is running on the CD or installed on your hard drive)
(2) CPU (speed, and type)
(3) Memory (amount)
(4) Video (is it on the motherboard, or seperate card, does it, and how much, memory does it have)

I don't want to "suggest" that you purchase a video card to resolve your problem, unless, I can be sure that "it would" fix the problem - not having any information, I "wouldn't" do that, maybe others can help even more, if more information is given about your system. This problem could be a "combination" of things, video + processor, video + memory, video + hard drive swap, etc... and it could be something by itself, video, swap, memory, processor, etc...

Not having more information (specific) to your system, diagnosis is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

You may want to include an output of your "dmesg" - this is the stuff that "scrolls" down your screen when you boot. To do this: on the icons across the bottom of your Knoppix, look for the icon that looks like a monitor that has a shell in front of it - it should open up a "Konsole" window. When the window opens, it should have a "prompt" where you can type commands after it. Type the following:

dmesg

Scroll back through the output and select the text, copy, and paste it into a reply post here. This information can provide insight into what "Knoppix" installed, devices it found, services that were started, and any problems it may have had, during the boot. You can also look through the output of this, and see if you can pick out information that pertains to any of the questions above, and post "snippets" of that output as well.

Info Center is another "nice" program to "view" things with - unfortunately, the information found in this program, is not able to be "copy / pasted" - but does provide a easy way to view information about the system. You can find it by clicking the "KMenu" icon - usually the first icon from the left, at the bottom of the screen, go up to "System", and the selections that pop out from that menu, you should find "Info Center". This program can view memory, devices, disk usage, etc... The "PCI" section may display information about your motherboard, video, sound, usb, and IDE devices.

Hopefully, with more information, your issue may, or can, be resolved - or at least know what is the cause.

Hope this helps,
Cuddles

[Art McClure]

Thanks for the reply.
I am using Knoppix 3.3 from the CD. I tried the disc in another computer, it runs without flaw (well almost). My bad computer is:

Athlon XP1600 with 512MB RAM
MSI K7T Mobo
Intel i740 video card with 8MB RAM

I never considered the Intel card to be a "real" display adapter, it had many problems in Windows until Intel upgraded the drivers.
Let me explain the exact problem that I am having. When I click on a drop-down menu, then click on an action, the menu disappears as it should, leaving behind a small "block" that shows a view of a section of the old drop-down menu. Sort of a little window to what used to be there. In OO, if I try to select text with the cursor, it rarely works, and if it does it selects part of the text or the wrong selection of words. For example, if I select a line of 10 words, maybe none will be "painted black", or sometimes just the first word and the last word. Using <Edit, Select All> works as it should.
Sometimes the cursor can't select any text at all. If I move the cursor on the screen while waiting for a program to complete an action, it will leave a trail of little boxes that may disappear when the action is completed.

Below is my demsg listing:

knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ dmesg
Linux version 2.4.24-xfs (root@Knoppix) (gcc version 2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)) #1 SMP Mi Feb 4 01:03:50 CET 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001fff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000001fff0000 - 000000001fff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000001fff3000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
511MB LOWMEM available.
found SMP MP-table at 000f5ec0
hm, page 000f5000 reserved twice.
hm, page 000f6000 reserved twice.
hm, page 000f1000 reserved twice.
hm, page 000f2000 reserved twice.
On node 0 totalpages: 131056
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 126960 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 VIA694 ) @ 0x000f78c0
ACPI: RSDT (v001 VIA694 MSI ACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3000
ACPI: FADT (v001 VIA694 MSI ACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3040
ACPI: MADT (v001 VIA694 MSI ACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff5880
ACPI: DSDT (v001 VIA694 AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000c) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
Processor #0 Pentium(tm) Pro APIC version 16
Using ACPI for processor (LAPIC) configuration information
Intel MultiProcessor Specification v1.4
Virtual Wire compatibility mode.
OEM ID: OEM00000 Product ID: PROD00000000 APIC at: 0xFEE00000
I/O APIC #2 Version 17 at 0xFEC00000.
Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 1 I/O APICs
Processors: 1
Kernel command line: ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=miniroot.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz myconfig=scan
ide_setup: hda=scsi
ide_setup: hdb=scsi
ide_setup: hdc=scsi
ide_setup: hdd=scsi
ide_setup: hde=scsi
ide_setup: hdf=scsi
ide_setup: hdg=scsi
ide_setup: hdh=scsi
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 1394.454 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 2778.72 BogoMIPS
Memory: 514728k/524224k available (1278k kernel code, 9108k reserved, 547k data, 136k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After generic, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 256K (64 bytes/line)
CPU: After generic, caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0383fbff c1c3fbff 00000000 00000000
CPU0: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1600+ stepping 02
per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 731.25 usecs.
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Error: only one processor found.
ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs
Setting 2 in the phys_id_present_map
...changing IO-APIC physical APIC ID to 2 ... ok.
init IO_APIC IRQs
IO-APIC (apicid-pin) 2-0, 2-16, 2-17, 2-18, 2-19, 2-20, 2-21, 2-22, 2-23 not connected.
..TIMER: vector=0x31 pin1=2 pin2=0
number of MP IRQ sources: 21.
number of IO-APIC #2 registers: 24.
testing the IO APIC.......................

IO APIC #2......
.... register #00: 02000000
....... : physical APIC id: 02
....... : Delivery Type: 0
....... : LTS : 0
.... register #01: 00178011
....... : max redirection entries: 0017
....... : PRQ implemented: 1
....... : IO APIC version: 0011
.... register #02: 00000000
....... : arbitration: 00
.... IRQ redirection table:
NR Log Phy Mask Trig IRR Pol Stat Dest Deli Vect:
00 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
01 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 39
02 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 31
03 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 41
04 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 49
05 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 51
06 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 59
07 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 61
08 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 69
09 001 01 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 71
0a 001 01 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 79
0b 001 01 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 81
0c 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 89
0d 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 91
0e 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 99
0f 001 01 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 A1
10 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
11 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
12 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
13 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
14 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
15 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
16 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
17 000 00 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
IRQ to pin mappings:
IRQ0 -> 0:2
IRQ1 -> 0:1
IRQ3 -> 0:3
IRQ4 -> 0:4
IRQ5 -> 0:5
IRQ6 -> 0:6
IRQ7 -> 0:7
IRQ8 -> 0:8
IRQ9 -> 0:9
IRQ10 -> 0:10
IRQ11 -> 0:11
IRQ12 -> 0:12
IRQ13 -> 0:13
IRQ14 -> 0:14
IRQ15 -> 0:15
.................................... done.
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 1394.4823 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 265.6155 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 2656155, slice: 1328077
CPU0<T0:2656144,T1:1328064,D:3,S:1328077,C:2656155>
Waiting on wait_init_idle (map = 0x0)
All processors have done init_idle
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb240, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B0,I7,P3) -> 10
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B0,I7,P3) -> 10
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B0,I7,P2) -> 11
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B0,I8,P0) -> 9
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B0,I10,P0) -> 11
PCI->APIC IRQ transform: (B1,I0,P0) -> 10
Applying VIA southbridge workaround.
PCI: Enabling Via external APIC routing
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd6000000, mapped to 0xe080d000, size 3072k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=4
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:7760
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 100000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci00:07.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xc000-0xc007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xc008-0xc00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: Maxtor 6E040L0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TDK CDRW8432, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: LTN301, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 80293248 sectors (41110 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=4998/255/63
ide-cd: passing drive hdc to ide-scsi emulation.
ide-cd: passing drive hdd to ide-scsi emulation.
hdc: attached ide-scsi driver.
hdd: attached ide-scsi driver.
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 >
ide: late registration of driver.
Promise Fasttrak(tm) Softwareraid driver 0.03beta: No raid array found
Highpoint HPT370 Softwareraid driver for linux version 0.02
Guestimating sector 80292223 for superblock
driver for Silicon Image(tm) Medley(tm) hardware version 0.0.1: No raid array found
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: TDK Model: CDRW8432 Rev: 1.07
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Vendor: LITEON Model: CD-ROM LTN301 Rev: ML46
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1 at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x xa/form2 cdda tray
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 32768)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 478k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
NCR53c406a: no available ports found
aec671x_detect:
scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card)
GDT: Storage RAID Controller Driver. Version: 2.05
GDT: Found 0 PCI Storage RAID Controllers
megaraid: v1.18k (Release Date: Thu Aug 28 10:05:11 EDT 2003)
megaraid: no BIOS enabled.
DC390: 0 adapters found
Failed initialization of WD-7000 SCSI card!
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
cloop: Initializing cloop v2.01
cloop: loaded (max 8 devices)
cloop: /cdrom/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX: 29909 blocks, 65536 bytes/block, largest block is 65562 bytes.
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16)
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
Intel ISA PCIC probe: not found.
Databook TCIC-2 PCMCIA probe: not found.
unloading Kernel Card Services
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 01:17:44 Feb 4 2004
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xc400, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xc800, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,EPP]
parport_pc: Via 686A parallel port: io=0x378
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,EPP]
parport_pc: Via 686A parallel port: io=0x378
Linux Tulip driver version 0.9.15-pre12 (Aug 9, 2002)
eth0: ADMtek Comet rev 17 at 0xe400, 00:04:5A:63:5C:37, IRQ 11.
Via 686a/8233/8235 audio driver 1.9.1-ac3
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:07.5 to 64
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: VIA97 (Unknown)
via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xCC00, IRQ 11
Enabled Via MIDI
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M
agpgart: Detected Via Apollo Pro KT133 chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xd0000000
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev ide0(3,5).
VFS: Can't find ext2 filesystem on dev ide0(3,5).
Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
sh-2021: reiserfs_read_super: can not find reiserfs on ide0(3,5)
knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$


I appreciate any help in this matter, as I would like to install Knoppix permanently on my computer.

[Cuddles]

Art,

I think we have the same motherboard video here...

From your posted dmesg output:

Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M
agpgart: Detected Via Apollo Pro KT133 chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xd0000000

Knoppix, as with my install, above states it has detected a Via Apollo Pro KT133 -=- I have the "exact" same motherboard mounted video card - it was "also" the same card that had problems on my system. If this is true, the memory you are reporting for your video memory, is in fact, your main system memory "shared" to the video card. This was also the problem with my video woes...

I did not see anywhere within your dmesg output that "another" video is being introduced, so my thinking is that your video card "is" on the motherboard, "is" using your system memory shared to your video card (which is very slow compared to video RAM), and thus, my conclusion is - your video card is having a hard time dealing with Knoppix and its refreshing needs.

I can attest that I had Win98, before I "jumped" "whole-hog" into Knoppix and GNU/Linux - and with Win98, I never had a problem with video related problems. When I introduced my system to Knoppix, my video began to have problems. This could be from many things. I never ran Windows above 1024 x 768 16 bit resolution, whereas, my Knoppix is now running one setting above that resolution. Your dmesg output appears to be using the 1024 x 768 x 16 bit. Your processor is fine, mine is close to yours. Only thing I can think of is the video, and the shared system memory.

Before I got another video card, other than the KT133 on the motherboard, I would get "pointers" stuck on my screen, until I "hovered" over a menu item, and then the pointer would vanish. With the new video card, nothing, so I can conclude my problems were associated with the motherboard mounted video card. You may be able to try another video card, any kind, that can be inserted into the system, and then boot up with the CD. I went out and bought a "cool" GeForce4 - but I wanted to "upgrade". For testing purposes, any video card that is not mounted on your motherboard could be a test with.

Maybe someone else has more "background" on this issue than I do, I hope this, kind of, helps...
Cuddles

[Art McClure]

Thanks for your interest!
My Mobo does not have built-in video. However, this i740 is a certified piece of ca-ca. When I opened the box that it came in, there were paint brushes and three containers of paint. I have a GeForce MX 440 that I am going to install. Knoppix works absolutely great on my newer computer, so I am going to keep trying. Today I decided to buy a new computer so that Knoppix will be all alone and no dual booting. Barton 2500, Shuttle AN35N Ultra w/ 256 DDR PC2700 RAM. I just need Open Office to work as it should.
Thanks for your time and concern. Personae like yourself make forums worthwhile.