synaptics touchpad mouse vs gpm on the console...

English Hardware
1

I’m not completely sure if this is the correct subforum for this but. My gateway mt6451 notebook has a built in synaptics touchpad. which I’d like very much to use for clipboard operations on the console. I found an yast utility that wants to help me configure exactly that. All I’m supposed to have to do is to select the correct mouse type from a short list. I looked in the gpm settings of one of my other installed distros {where gpm does work on the console} to find that ps/2 was rge selected type there… I selected the best match from yast’s list “PS/2 mouse (Aux-port)” But it’s still not working on the console…

What am I missing?

2

Hi
I use a usb mouse as well as the touchpad fine with gpm, I use the ‘usb
mouse’. What is the output from the command xinput showing for the
virtual core pointer?

Normally the defaults should work fine… as in /dev/input/mice for
your touchpad.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.6-2.10-desktop
up 3 days 9:16, 4 users, load average: 0.37, 0.18, 0.10
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

3

Posted by: malcolmlewis On: 07-Oct-2012 03:28

> Hi
> I use a usb mouse as well as the touchpad fine with gpm, I use the ‘usb
> mouse’. What is the output from the command xinput showing for the
> virtual core pointer?


 /home 
UnderTree=-> xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
 /home 
UnderTree=->

Normally the defaults should work fine… as in /dev/input/mice for
your touchpad.

I thank you for that suggestion… It’s been so long since I had to manually set-up gpm that I’d forgotten how… It took me days to remember that gpm had a help option… Which included this example {which didn’t work BTW}

gpm -m /dev/misc/psaux -t ps2 to start with a ps2 mouse

Then when I found the yast utility I noticed that it appeared to provide an GUI tool to accomplish the same thing as

gpm -t ps2

without any provision to even inform a user of the -m option to gpm. (I wonder why?)

In any case the fact that the yast tool didn’t bother with setting the device caused me to think that OpenSuSE did that via some automatically.

After failing to figure it out, I asked for help.

You however included the {default?} device pathname {/dev/input/mice} which got me to try this sequence in a root shell on tty1


gpm -k
gpm -m /dev/input/mice -t ps2

Which worked nicely.

Thanks again.

4

Turns out that starting gpm at root prompt, only works for the current boot. But given that gpm must be started by root, I don’t know where {in OpenSuSE} to put the above command(s), so that gpm starts before anyone even logs in???

5

Hi
Via YaST gpm and also YaST runlevel editor to start the service.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.6-2.10-desktop
up 3:21, 3 users, load average: 0.26, 0.23, 0.19
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

6

Thanks.

Gosh, I shoulda noticed that yast option… Sigh!

7

On 2012-10-10 18:46, jtwdyp wrote:

> Turns out that starting gpm at root prompt, only works for the current
> boot. But given that gpm must be started by root, I don’t know where {in
> OpenSuSE} to put the above command(s), so that gpm starts before anyone
> even logs in???

Edit /etc/sysconfig/mouse:


MOUSEDEVICE="dev/input/mice"
MOUSETYPE="ps2"

Then test in text mode by running “rcrpm start” as root. If it works use “chkconfig gpm on” to make
it permanent. However, this service by default does not start on level 5, for which you would have
to use instead “chkconfig gpm 235” (I don’t know how this will work on systemd, my laptop is 11.4).

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

8

Thanks for the info on doing this via command line… Hmmmnnn I’ll have to update my personal how-to notes. It looks to me like this chkconfig command serves a similar functionality to the debian command “update-rc.d”… I’ll have to spend some time with the man document… (Thanks again for the useful heads up!)

9

On 2012-10-15 10:16, jtwdyp wrote:

> Thanks for the info on doing this via command line… Hmmmnnn I’ll have
> to update my personal how-to notes. It looks to me like this chkconfig
> command serves a similar functionality to the debian command
> “update-rc.d”… I’ll have to spend some time with the man document…
> (Thanks again for the useful heads up!)

Notice that chkconfig is an openSUSE addition to systemv, but it is also
being modified to work with systemd now.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

10

Yeah I notised something about that in the output of

chkconfig -l

but it is also being modified to work with systemd now.

Now that has got to be good news for everyone who actually likes CLI methods…

11

On 2012-10-15 20:36, jtwdyp wrote:

>> Now that has got to be good news for everyone who actually *likes CLI
> * methods…

well, calling chkconfig is easier than the equivalent systemd syntax :slight_smile:

(and there are no GUI alternatives: yast has problems here)

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)