PS/2 mouse is not working (solved)

[xyz-worx]

Hi all,

I've installed TC in different versions (3.1, 3.4.1  and 3.7.1) but I can't get working my 3-button wheel mouse, attached to the PS/2 port.
The mouse works well, if I use Damn Small Linux (V 4-4-10, kernel 2.4.xx) on the same machine.
After 'asking' Google I could find some tricks to check, if the mouse delivers any kind of data. But neither
cat /dev/psaux nor
cat /dev/input/mice nor
cat /dev/input/mouse0
did show any data output on the terminal. (These 'cats' for instance work well on several Ubuntu-PCs using different mice and touch pads.)

It seems, that the mouse is not recognized during boot-time, although 'dmesg' reports
...
PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:PS2K,PNP0f13:PS2M] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
...

So do I have to load any appropriate drivers manually via 'modprobe'? And if so, what is the correct driver?
Or does it be possible, that the kernel has problems with the chipset used in my relatively old PC?


Thank you for your answers in advance!

[Juanito]

Do you see something similar to this:

Code: [Select]

$ cat /proc/bus/input/devices
...
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0006 Version=0068
N: Name="ImExPS/2 Logitech Explorer Mouse"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input2
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse1 event2
B: EV=7
B: KEY=1f0000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=143


[xyz-worx]

Hi Juanito,

thank you for your immediate reply.

Please see the following printout:

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0001 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button"
P: Phys=PNP0C0C/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0C:00/input/input0
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=100000 0 0 0

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0001 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button"
P: Phys=LNXPWRBN/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input1
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event1
B: EV=3
B: KEY=100000 0 0 0

I: Bus=0017 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=0100
N: Name="Macintosh mouse button emulation"
P: Phys=
S: Sysfs=/devices/virtual/input/input2
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event2
B: EV=7
B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=3

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=ab41
N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input3
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event3
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=4 2000000 3803078 f800d001 feffffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=7

As far as I can see, there is one mouse-related entry;  the "Macintosh mouse button emulation", but no one for the mouse functionalty itself.
BTW: The keyboard - also attached to the PS/2 controller - works perfectly.

best regards, xyz-worx

[Juanito]

It looks like your mouse is not recognised.

I don't recall whether you can swap the keyboard and mouse connectors around, but maybe you could try it and see what happens?

Do you have a usb mouse that you could test things with?

[xyz-worx]

Hi Juanito,

I think it was a misunderstanding. I wanted to point out, that the PS/2 keyboard works well on its dedicated plug (not on the mouse plug of course), so that the 8042-controller must be recognised correctly.

I tried an optical Mirosoft USB-mouse, which did not work 'out of the box'. I'm not sure, whether these kind of mice do need an additional driver to work.
I will see, if I can get an mechanical USB-mouse from my office and try to see, if it works. I'll report as soon as I've done it.

Thanks and good bye!

[Juanito]

You could also exit to the prompt and try xsetup.sh from the command line to try various mouse options.

[xyz-worx]

Hi Juanito,

of course I've played around with 'xsetup.sh' without any success. This morning I've done some test with an Intel P4 PC (with Intel chip-set 82845/82801) in my office, booted from CD, TC 3.7.1. It is also equipped with a 3-button mechanical wheel-mouse - and it works as soon as I press one mouse-key.
I'm more and more thinking, that it is the chip-set, which makes the difficulties. The motherboard of the PC at home is made up with an ALI chip-set.
With a little 'Googling' I found out, that there was a similar problem with Ubuntu 7.04 and SiS chip-sets. Accroding to the thread in the launchpad forum, a patch of the kernal has been done.
This afternoon I'll take some USB mechanical mouses and try them - let's look for the results.

best regards xyz-worx

[xyz-worx]

Hi Juanito,

the mouse problem is solved!

As I said, I tried an USB-mouse instead of the PS/2 one. In fact the result was worse than before.
The PC hang after the boot mesages. But this lead me to the solution. I could see, that something was
wrong with the ACPI functionality of the chip-set. The interrupt for the network card (IRQ5 on my PC)
could not be detected and was routed to IRQ12. But as far as I know, IRQ12 is the original interrupt for PS/2
mice.
This lead me back to that Ubuntu thread I mentioned in my last post. One of the tips there was to
switch off ACPI.
So the  solution is to add
   acpi=off
to the boot-command-line in my GRUB config-file.
Unfortunatly this boot-option is mentioned neither in the FAQs nor in the wiki. Maybe this can be added
to help other ones having similar (hardware-) problems.

Thank for your help
and best regards
    xyz-worx

[Rich]

Hi xyz-worx
Most if not all of the boot codes listed in the Wiki and FAQ are specific to Tinycore. If you are interested
in generic boot codes check out
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
Just be aware that as new versions of the kernel are released that sometimes certain boot codes
get removed and new ones are added. The link I've listed is kept fairly current and a nicely indexed
version of the Linux documentation.

[xyz-worx]

Thank for this information, Rich.

I remember from early versions of KNOPPIX deactivating of ACPI was a suggested workaround, if some
hardware problems did occur. In those times NEW hardware often was difficult to be handled by Linux.
Now it seems, that it is OLD hardware. Nevertheless, I got my system working and I hope, that TC will
continue supporting even older hardware. These old workhorses do a good job for data logging, network
sniffing or line monitoring. And TC is suited ideally for such jobs.

By the way:
There one drawback deactivating ACPI - the PC does not shutdown automatically, I have it to power off
manually. But I can live with this.


best regards
     xyz-worx

[Rich]

Hi xyz-worx
As I've written before in several other posts, I'm running Tinycore on an old DEC made in 1997 as a
file server and it works beautifully. Due to the fact that Linux does not rely on the BIOS I don't run into
drive size limitations and the machine easily handles the 320GB drive that I installed.

By the way:
There one drawback deactivating ACPI - the PC does not shutdown automatically, I have it to power off
manually. But I can live with this.

Sometimes in life compromises have to be made.

[floppy]

Unfortunatly this boot-option is mentioned neither in the FAQs nor in the wiki. Maybe this can be added
to help other ones having similar (hardware-) problems.

I have currently an exotic boot code list, too, and found all explanation in the kernel.org parameter list in  http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt   .. and with help here in this forum
...  kernel       /boot/bzImage blacklist=snd_usb_audio quiet floppy=0,irq vga=789 tz=CET-1CEST,M3.5.0,M10.5.0/3 pci=use_crs nolapic nosmp noisapnp noscsi noapic nozswap pnpbios=off showapps home=hdd3 mydata=mcactdat tce=hda2 lst=microorg.lst ide_core.ignore_cable=1 printk.time=1

[xyz-worx]

Hi Rich, Hi floppy.

after having TC running, the next steps are to setup the PC according to my needs.
The aim is to have the same functionality I had before when using DSL. So the monkey
web-server and PHP have to be installed as well as FTP, filemanager and so on.

After this work I've planned to play around with some bootcodes you both have shown to me.
I will also take a closer look to all extension card plugged to the various slots in my PC. It's a
mix of ISA and PCI ones.
With the experience I made the last days, there must be something wrong, particulary with handling
the interrupts. Powering off the system manually had to be done with WIN98 too - I just forgot it,
because I don't use it anymore on this PC.

If I get any further information I will update this post. Maybe it's useful for other guys too.

Thank you all for your support.

   xyz-worx

[Rich]

Hi xyz-worx
Ahhhh, WIN98, that's when she was only chubby and not obese, sigh.

[xyz-worx]

Hi,

as I said in my last post, I did play around with some bootcodes. In fact it was the
first attempt, which lead me to what I wanted:

The code 'acpi=off' was a little bit too 'hard' and so the automatic power down could
not work.
Now with the bootcode
   pci=noacpi
I really got, what I want: A working mouse and a system that doesn't need to be
powered off manually. Thererfore I've marked this topic as 'solved'!

Again thank for your support!

    xyz-worx