[Gpm] Re: p Re: p logitec having short freezes & future of gpm

[Tomas Pospisek]

Ciao Alessandro,

On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Alessandro Rubini wrote:

> > * I'm having here a Logitec PS2 wheelmouse, it's 2nd hand so I don't know
> >   it's type. It works with:
> >
> > 	device=/dev/psaux
> > 	responsiveness=
> > 	repeat_type=raw
> > 	type=imps2
>
> I don't know what kind of configuration this is. This is one of the
> configuration-specific stuff that we've never been told about.

I tested the same mouse on another PC and it doesn't have this erratic
behaveour there. Since the laptop on which I was tried to install the
mouse is about 6 years old and that's IMO about the time when PS/2 was
introduced into mainstream, it *might* also be a problem of the laptop,
i.e. it's chipset, with the PS/2 interfaces/implementation.

> I can't tell what is going wrong with repeating. Actually, I never run
> X-4 in repeater mode currently.
>
> I suspect the problem is in that imps2 support is somehow partial, and
> raw repeating may just not be doing the right thing. I personally
> avoid imwheel stuff, so I didn't hit the problem.
>
> Sorry to look so rough, but I'm really on different kind of software
> right now.

Even on this modern PC repeating doesn't work. Any combination of:

	type=imps2|ps2
	repeat_type=raw|imps2|ps2

will fail under X. What *does* (!) work is:

	type=imps2|ps2
	repeat_type=ms3

but then I can't use the wheel.

I can really only very heartly recommend you to try out the wheel under X.
It's *very* nice. Scrolling through windows, especially scrolling back
through terminal history to find stuff or scrolling through HTML pages is
really *very, very* convenient. Try it out!

I'm not touching any of the stuff in the imwheel package, I don't really
understand what it's meant for. It seems that X4 doesn't need it.

> >   * Could you include some pointers to *working* gpm replacements?
>
> There's nothing available, to my knowledge. Input management is being
> centralized in the kernel, and a gpm is available to use the input
> mechanism to gather input (I didn't yet publish it, my fault).

I'd beta test for you if you want. Just send me the URL.

> >   * In case gpm is going to die and there won't be any replacement I'd
> >     consider it as a *tragedy*.
>
> Not so bad, in my opinion. If you run graphics, you can read input
> directly from the device (or the kernel input subsystem, if that's
> supported). If you run text, the old ms-compatible or ps2-compatible
> protocols are always working.

Yes, but I'm often switching between X and console, especially on my
laptop, where X is slow. And I need the mouse for copy-pasting in both.
So I'd be nice to have it. What about the idea of using X's mouse
interaction facilities from gpm? Then you could forget about having to
mess with twisted mouse protocols and could leave that task to the Xfree
people, which IMO have more and better ressources for finding out about
those protocols.

> >      Can't
> >     anybody (the big distros etc.) sponsor your work? Have you tried to
> >     check?
>
> One of the reasons why I dropped gpm is because one of the big distros
> told me "we want to sponsor you on what you do" and then "instead of
> working on gpm (that we use), why don't you volunteer for our other
> projects".

Hmm, I wonder if there couldn't be done anything about that. But you are
involved it prosa.it anyway and having two jobs at once seems not to be
what you are seeking or am I interpreting this wrong?

Btw. I checked your site but there seem to be only patches for 1.19.2?

Thanks,
*t

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     Tomas Pospisek
     sourcepole    -   Linux & Open Source Solutions
     http://sourcepole.com
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