The" knoppix wheelmouse" cheatcode has no effect

[Adrian]

Hello!

If anybody can help me please tell me what can I do to make the scroll wheel of the mouse to work.
Shoud I be able to scroll with the well from the Mozilla Browser ?
I haven't used Linux before

I have a Genius NetScroll+ serial mouse and even though I type knoppix wheelmouse when I boot from the knoppix CD (I didn't install it on the HDD) the wheel still has no efect in any programs

Thank you
Adrian

[MattT]

I don't know how to fix your problem. But since you are new to Linux I can give you a clue. Use a text editor to look at the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. This is the file for graphics and input devices. In it you will find a section for serial mouse. Mine looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Serial Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "Microsoft"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
EndSection

Hope you get it to work

[Entropy42]

Hello!

If anybody can help me please tell me what can I do to make the scroll wheel of the mouse to work.
Shoud I be able to scroll with the well from the Mozilla Browser ?
I haven't used Linux before

I have a Genius NetScroll+ serial mouse and even though I type knoppix wheelmouse when I boot from the knoppix CD (I didn't install it on the HDD) the wheel still has no efect in any programs

Thank you
Adrian

Which version of Knoppix are you running?

I was hacking around in the mkxf86config scripts for other reasons. (Actually, I copied the "wheel" entry and added "glidepoint" for my laptop's touchpad...), and it looks like a few of the "cheatcodes" have changed slightly in 3.2. For example, in 3.2, "wheelmouse" won't do anything at all, but "wheel" will for PS/2 mice by changing "PS/2" to "IMPS/2". USB mice don't need any cheatcodes for wheel support, which is why I probably never noticed a problem. (USB mice default to the IMPS/2 protocol to begin with.)

I've never seen a serial wheel mouse, if such a beast exists, "wheel" in its current incarnation won't do anything.

[Adrian]

I do have a serial wheelmouse, and it works well under Windows 98 without any drivers installed be the user (me).
I have Knoppix 3.2 CD (as seen in the index.html file on the CD).

The "Serial Mouse" "InputDevice" section in the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
is exactly as the one showed by MattT.

On Windows 95 the scrool wheel does not work also, even with the NetScroll+ drivers for Win95 installed.

Since I cannot install a driver with the Knoppix CD (I don't know how to install a driver on Linux anyway) I gived it up, I don't think there is a solution (other then a HDD instalation of Linux).

[Entropy42]

I do have a serial wheelmouse, and it works well under Windows 98 without any drivers installed be the user (me).
I have Knoppix 3.2 CD (as seen in the index.html file on the CD).

The "Serial Mouse" "InputDevice" section in the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
is exactly as the one showed by MattT.

On Windows 95 the scrool wheel does not work also, even with the NetScroll+ drivers for Win95 installed.

Since I cannot install a driver with the Knoppix CD (I don't know how to install a driver on Linux anyway) I gived it up, I don't think there is a solution (other then a HDD instalation of Linux).

What you might want to try, it's a bit of a convoluted approach:

Boot into textmode. (Use your usual cheatcodes, and add the "2" cheatcode)

emacs /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Change the "Protocol" entry. IMPS/2 is what is used for PS/2 wheel mice, I don't know what the protocol is for serial wheel mice - I'm 90% positive that if the version of X that comes on the Knoppix CD doesn't support the wheel with your mouse, no version of Linux will. XFree has a reasonably complete mouse driver set built in.

Then either try "startx" or "init 5"

If worst comes to worst, get a PS/2 or USB wheelmouse... That will free up your serial port for other things, and every PS/2 or USB wheelmouse I've used has worked with the "IMPS/2" protocol.