Vivanco optical PS/2 wheelmouse doesn't work (freezed)

[olavi]

I have this Vivanco optical PS/2 wheelmouse. The mouse cursor just sits there at the center of the KDE screen. I've tried "knoppix nowheelmouse", "knoppix wheelmouse" and "knoppix pci=irqmask=0x0e92" with no luck. What should I try next?

The mouse works under Windows (98, XP) without any additional drivers, and I think it works under DOS, too, but I'm not sure.

In case someone is cataloging hardware incompatibilities, the model is Vivanco Primary Optical Mouse EDV-NR.13007/MSOP10.

[olavi]

Now I've tried another, normal 2-button PS/2 mouse. That one doesn't work either. Also, I tried "expert" and different PS/2 mouse drivers but they didn't work. Any suggestions?

[olavi]

I was told to try to go to console with ctrl-alt-f1 and type "cat /dev/psaux". It said something about the device being busy. Is this normal?

[olavi]

I booted "knoppix -b" and then tried "cat /dev/psaux". It prints my mouse movements out to stdout or something. The mouse should work but it doesn't under X or KDE or... what?

Any answer would be helpful.

[Markus]

A few more cheatcodes to try: pci=irqmask=0x0e98, pci=biosirq, nowheel.
Some BIOSes have extra settings for keyboard and PS/2 ports which can be disabled.
If it helps here's the relevant part of my /etc/X11/XF86Config-4:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "XFree86 Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "PS/2 Mouse" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "PS/2 Mouse" # Match this with InputDevice above
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" # Try "PS/2" or "auto" if it doesn't work
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
EndSection

[olavi]

Thanks for your reply!

I solved the problem by going to BIOS and changing 'Plug and Play OS' to 'disable'. Just FYI, I have an Abit KT7A motherboard with latest BIOS patches.

But why do I have to do that? Isn't Linux a PnP OS? I know it's often Plug and Pray in Windows, but it still seems weird that something as common BIOS option as that doesn't work. This kinda reaffirms the myth that Windows is easier to install... and that's sad.

BUT, ADSL connection through a router was much easier to install under Knoppix than under Windows. The damn thing actually autodetected the DNS servers! Typed this computer's IP and router's IP and that was it! Wow! Connection is up, I\m writing this on Knoppix and the whole procedure took only a minute! Now THAT's plug and play.

I can imagine how handy Knoppix is when building a new computer. Stuck in the hardware, and if there's OS install problems just put in Knoppix and ask help or download upgrades from the internet. Cool...