[GLLUG] Mouse detection

[Matt Graham]

On Wednesday 26 March 2003 12:14, after a long battle with technology, 
Michael T.Watters II wrote:

In messages posted to Usenet or mailing lists, include context so people 
can figure out what the heck you were talking about.  Context restored:

> Brad Fears wrote:

>> I've been having trouble going back and forth from external mouse to
>> built-in touchpad on my laptop (using RH 8).
>> I've been using a script to replace the mouse section in my 
>> XF86Config file when I switch (both mice use /dev/psaux, so all I 
>> normally modify is the driver parameter), but I'd like to have the 
>> script run before X fires up so I don't have to restart it after it 
>> gets modified.

> XFree86 4.3 supports auto detection of mice, so you may want to look
> into upgrading to that.  If you can't upgrade you could also try
> using a USB mouse.

I don't know that would work properly.  Part of the problem is that 
Brad's laptop has one of those "shared" PS/2 ports on it, and his 
touchpad uses the "normal" PS/2 protocol while the mouse he's plugged 
in uses the IMPS/2 protocol.  This is a bit flaky under XFree86 at the 
best of times AFAIK, since it only sees one mouse port and can get 
confused when that mouse port speaks both IMPS/2 and PS/2 protocols.

XFree86 under Linux also has (had?) a problem with mice changing 
midstream; if you plugged in a new mouse while X was running, it 
couldn't find the mouse until you restarted X in versions up 
to/including 4.2.1, since the X server only polled for new devices on 
startup, never did so again, and you couldn't force it to re-poll 
without restarting X.  If they've fixed this problem in 4.3.0, it's 
great news.

-- 
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