[gpm]GPM problems

[Peter Berg Larsen]

On 1 Apr 2002, Troy Schultz wrote:

> My system is a Compaq Presario 2710 with a synaptics touchpad+4-way
> scroll key, firmware version 5.8.  I am running RedHat 7.2 with kernel
> 2.4.17, ACPI version 20020225, and Xfree86 Version 4.2.0.

Could you write what capacities the touchpad is detected as having. (Need
option -D)


> I start gpm using the following;
> "daemon gpm -Rimps2 -t synps2 -m /dev/mouse"

What happens if you only use the touchpad as a ps2 device (you need to
reboot).


> The problems I experience are as follows;
> #1: access console using <CTRL><ALT><F1> and return to X using
> <CTRL><ALT><F7> no response from X for either mouse or keybaord.  This
> happens 100% of the time with gpm 1.20.0 and only happened once with gpm
> 1.19.6.  After this I must restart the system.  During this
> /var/log/messages do not report anything out of the ordinary.

I dont know what can causes this (my guess is the kernel keybd.c, or the
daemon state). Can you do any SysRq? What happens if you start gpm with
-D. (What happens if you do an additional startx?)


> #2: after X screen saver is running and returns to normal X display,
> loose mouse and sometime keyboard.  This happens approx. 20% of the
> time.  After this if I ssh to the notebook and restart gpm things work
> again.  During this problem /var/log/messages reports "gpm[PID]: garbage
> or tossing PS/2 data"
> 
> #3: sometimes during normal running, usually related with a window
> close, I also experience mouse and keyboard loss as in problem #2. Same
> results and fix as #2 also.

This is very probably because the touchpad is reset (after poweroff to
save battery). Gpm does not detect when a device sends reset code. The
garbage data is then ps2 protocol data. I dont understand why keyboard is
effected though. Could you compile gpm with debug info, and next time it
happens attach gdb to see where/what gpm is doing. 


Peter
--
E-Mail:       pebl@math.ku.dk 
Real name:    Peter Berg Larsen 
Where:        Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen Uni., Denmark