Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:21:44 -0400 From: Scott <scottro@nyc.rr.com> To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Observations on PS/2 Mouse and KVM switch Message-ID: <20011019222144.2ad00e4a.scottro@nyc.rr.com>
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I've only been playing with FreeBSD for a short while, but find myself very impressed with it. However, one difficulty I've been having is that I use a KVM switch with a PS/2 mouse. (Generally, I use an MS Intellimouse, however, experimentation brought me the same results with a couple of generic, standard PS/2 mice as well). At any rate, there is a problem with it--I'm not sure if they consider it a bug or not, although some searching on Deja and FreeBSD-questions indicate that they probably do. Searching has come up with the following solutions that worked for different individuals. Some had success changing /etc/X11/XFree86Config so that protocol, rather than PS/2 or Intellimouse read Auto. Others have had success adding, after psm0 in their kernel configuration flags 0x100--and others adding flags 0x800. For myself, none of these worked. I have found a workaround (though it's only useful for a home network--in a production environment, if one were running various servers where you needed X on occasions, this one isn't practical). If, when the machine is first booted up, the KVM switch has to be on that machine. It can't be changed to another until the machine is booted and an X session has begun. In other words, if I have boxes 1, 2 and 3, while booting 2, I have to be sure that it is the one that I am viewing with the KVM switch. Once it's booted, and I start an X session, I'm able to go to other boxes and back to it without problem. (I should point out that I have moused disabled--I don't use it in console mode and if I start X and moused isn't disabled I get an error message that the mouse is busy--easy enough to fix by doing ps ax | grep mouse and killing the pid, but a nuisance.) Oddly enough (possibly only odd because of my ignorance) if I boot up into a text session, go to another box, go back to the first box and then start X I still get peculiar mouse behavior. The KVM switch has to stay on the box until X is started. I've also found that I can't exit X. So, for my particular hardware combination, I can use X with BSD. However, I must have the KVM switch on the box that I plan to use, from boot up until the X session is started, and once it is started, i can't end an X session and start a new one. At any rate, for home use, this is, while not idea, workable. I'm just posting it in the hope that it might be of use for someone thanks Scott Robbins To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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