[gpm]Fwd: GPM problem - possibly a BUG.

[Alessandro Rubini]

I got this message from Eduardo Fernandes Piva (who's Cc:d), who
wrote to me and Ian Zimmerman.

Eduardo, I'm not the maintiner of gpm any more, so I quote all of your
email to the gpm mailing list. The new maintainer is Nico Schottelius
<nicos@pcsystems.de>.

> Hi there. I got your emails in the gpm man page.
> 
> I'm trying to put gpm to work on my system (logitech mini-wheel optical 
> mouse - ps2) and everytime I start gpm and try to move the mouse, I got 
> some strange behaviors. Normally it starts cut and pasting things and the 
> mouse cursor stays in the top right of the screen.
> 
> I have tested these with and withou X opened with protocols ps2 and imps2.
> 
> BUT, if I do:
> gpm -t imps2
> gpm -k
> gpm -t ps2
> 
> The mouse starts working (I have to start imps2 before start with ps2). 
> Maybe imps2 do some initializations my mouse needs but just ps2 works 
> here.

Looks the right diagnosis. Unfortunately, mouse initialization
sequences are not documented (as far as I know), and each vendor makes
its own and places it in its own windows driver. Buying a mouse is
becoming more and more difficult for me, just like buying a video card.
 
> If I open X and then close it and go back to the console, the problem 
> starts again (the mouse cursor goes there again and start cut and pastnig, 
> if I move the mouse). Then, if I just do those commands again, it starts 
> working fine again.

This means that X configures and resets the pointer in the right way.
It's good.
 
> Do you two knew about these problem? Have any clue? I'm a developer but I 
> have no idea how the mouse system works, but if you give me some clue I 
> could try to fix it. (Probably telling me what kind of initialization the 
> imps2 do that my ps2 driver needs..).

If you get the gpm source ("apt-get source gpm" or equivalent) you'll
find device-specific stuff lives in mice.c.  With X ("apt-get source
xserver-common" or equivalent) it depends on what version you are
running.

3.3.6:
	xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/common/xf86_Mouse.c

4.0.3 and 4.2.0 (4.*, probably):
	xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/input/mouse/mouse.c

> The version of gpm I'm using is 1.19.3

The last I released. Newer versions have a lot of work on PS/2 initialization,
they might be interesting to you:

	ftp://arcana.linux.it/pub/gpm/
	ftp://ftp.linux.it/pub/People/rubini/gpm/ (mirror of above, faster)

[yes, I still host the releases, and linux.it kindly mirrors all I publish
 and hosts the mailing list]