Mouse freezes

**disk11** · 05-05-2004, 09:41 AM

Hi guys, I'm new to Knoppix. I borrowed a version 3.3 CD from my friend to check some stuff during a Windows install, and the mouse locks up. The OS still works, but using the keyboard is a pain and being very new to Linux doesn't help. This happened several times. Every time I was seaching though my hard drive. Its a cheapo Memorex optical mouse hooked up via the PS/2 port that works fine in Windows 2k. For when I setup my Knoppix CD, is there something I can do to prevent this from happening again? Will post hardware specs if needed.

**bob58** · 05-05-2004, 01:39 PM

Yes, I had same problem when i got a new optical mouse....Unfortunatly KNOPPIX does not support those kind of mice yet. Your best bet is to use a regular serial or usb mouse.....hope this helps!

**disk11** · 05-06-2004, 12:38 AM

Ahh I see.

All I have is an Optical cuz I can't stand regular mice:/ I hope this gets added soon. Thanks.

**dvest** · 05-06-2004, 02:38 AM

I'm using a Logitech optical usb mouse with no problems.

**zentu** · 05-06-2004, 03:52 AM

ummm... I have used my PS/2 connected MS Explorer mouse optical since version 3.x and have had no problems, so it is not a problem with optical mice, it is probably a problem with the mouse chosen in Xfree86, but usually it results from some other piece of hardware (what I have noticed in multiple environments) not the mouse directly.

Have you tried the 'nowheelmouse' cheat to see if that is the problem (or was it that you had to enable the wheelmouse in 3.3, mind is drawing a blank), and have you booted with the testcd option to verify that the disk is good. You may just want to go and DL the newest 3.4 that was released yesterday, then you could try to see if the problem was fixed with some driver upgrade.

**Cuddles** · 05-06-2004, 03:54 AM

Disk11,

Interesting, I am running Knoppix v3.3, used to run it through the CD, but for more than four months now, been running on a hard drive install...

But, I have always used a Ps/2 mouse, for more than six months now, first five months was a Microsoft Optical Explorer (wheel) mouse, and now, my old one was going "flakey", and is a "no name" brand, wheel optical mouse - both work fine. The problem I was having with my old mouse, causing me to replace it, was it would skip across the screen, and usually click on my KMenu, even though I didn't move the mouse physically. (I think the optical was going out on it)

Once replaced, no more problems again. Don't know what to say, I have heard people with problems on a USB mouse, and very few on PS/2 - but thats me.

Hope this helps,
Cuddles

**j.drake** · 05-06-2004, 01:46 PM

My optical PS/2 mouse works beautifully in 3.4 with 2.4 kernel. It seemed a little sluggish early on with the 2.6 kernel, but most of that has cleared up (I had errors in my persistent home directory - once resolved, things got much better).

**disk11** · 05-06-2004, 10:42 PM

Have you tried the 'nowheelmouse' cheat to see if that is the problem (or was it that you had to enable the wheelmouse in 3.3, mind is drawing a blank), and have you booted with the testcd option to verify that the disk is good. You may just want to go and DL the newest 3.4 that was released yesterday, then you could try to see if the problem was fixed with some driver upgrade.

I just booted off the CD, and as I searched through my hard drive partition, it locked up.

I just need to get some RW cds for Knoppix and figure this issue out. Thanks for all the help.

**j.drake** · 05-07-2004, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by j.drake

My optical PS/2 mouse works beautifully in 3.4 with 2.4 kernel. It seemed a little sluggish early on with the 2.6 kernel, but most of that has cleared up (I had errors in my persistent home directory - once resolved, things got much better).

Well, OK, maybe all is NOT so well. Even with 2.4 kernel, if I use persistent home and myconfig boot flags, my mouse just flat is not working. To my knowledge I haven't changed anything that would affect it. I did try to install captive NTFS, and got several errors, but I can't imagine that it impacted my mouse. Also, the clock problem seems to be causing a lot of text to appear in the boot process - something to the effect that one aspect or another of my configuration occurs in the future - but no evidence that the OS disregarded or wasn't able to handle the instruction as a consequence. The clock issue seems like such a minor problem, but if it's causing errors to occur, then it's no longer minor.

Of course, it occurs to me now that I should have verified that the PS/2 plug was still seated. I'm not at that computer, so if I find out later that this was a stupid PEBCAC issue, I'll edit and ask my press secretary, Emily Litella, to issue as statement.

**Durand Hicks** · 05-07-2004, 04:03 PM

I'm using an optical mouse on my laptop without a problem. Here's a copy of the relevant section of xf86Config-4 file:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "PS/2 Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "ZaxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
EndSection

Does it help if you used this for your optical mouse? I changed the protocol to explorerps/2 because that would make the optical mouse work with the wheelmouse on 2.6 as well as 2.4.

HTH,

Durand