Subj : Re: Knoppix mouse detection [was What's the story with Knoppix?]
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Trent Buck
Date : Sun Dec 19 2004 09:05 am

Up spake Linux Lover:
> I heard so many nice things about Knoppix, so when I received a Compaq 
> Armada 1700 which had only a 4GB HDD, I thought the best thing for it is 
> to run Knoppix on it (so that I can use most of the HDD for data instead 
> of the OS).
> 
> I eagerly downloaded Knoppix 3.7 (the latest and greatest as of today), 
> but when I installed it it couldn't recognized the mouse properly, thus 
> the mouse cursor on screen is stuck at the center of the screen.

Some workarounds:

  - Try Knoppix 3.4 or 3.6.

  - Try both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels (knoppix24 and knoppix26 at prompt)

  - Fiddle with your BIOS' settings (press F10 at boot, IIRC)

  - On external keyboards, the numeric keypad can be used to emulate a
    mouse.  Shift + NumLock toggles mouse emulation.

> Or at least how to let the author of Knoppix about this serious flaw? (I 
> wouldn't call it "serious flaw", if RedHat and Mandrake didn't work so 
> well with the same exact hardware).

Dr. Klaus Knopper (the author of Knoppix) can be reached at
info@knopper.net.  His website is knopper.net.  There is a user
community at knoppix.net, which has much more information. 
Unfortunately, some of it is currently offline as it is being upgraded. 

> So, I can only assume that something is fundamentaly wrong with the way 
> *Knoppix* identify the pointing device (Knoppix had no problem with any 
> of the other hardware devices proper detection and control).

In general, Knoppix maintains hardware lists that associate hardware ID
numbers with device types / protocols.  It may be that your particular
device IDs are not yet in that list.  I'm not very familiar with PS/2; I
don't know how to probe it.

More things to try:

  - What drivers do the active InputDevice sections list in
    /etc/X11/XF86Config-4?

  - What is the output of `lsmod'?

  - What is the output of `dmesg'?

  (Don't post the whole thing here, these commands have a *lot* of
   output.)

-- 
-trent
In the beginning was the Word and it was written by a baboon.

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