serial port mouse

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: serial port mouse
started by: netcrawl

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 08 2005,15:43

Howdy, long time lurker, first time poster. Hope this is the proper forum for this...

I'm trying to get a serial port mouse on a Pentium 233MMX w/48 MB RAM to be recognized by DamnSmallLinux(DSL) 1.5.

The mouse works with an older version, DSL 0.4.10, but not with DSL 0.8.4 or 1.5.

I've tried configuring the mouse with xsetup.sh several times, using COMs 1-4 with no luck.

I can use version 0.4.10, but I'd rather use the newer release. Any suggestions on how to get the serial port mouse working is appreciated.

netcrawl
netcrawl is invisible Edit/Delete Message

Posted by roberts on Dec. 08 2005,16:54

It would help us help you if you could post the results of
cat .xserverrc
This will display the mouse option currently being used.

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 08 2005,17:16

post the results of
cat .xserverrc

No problems.

# cat .xserverrc
exec /usr/bin/X11/Xfbdev -2button -mouse /dev/ttyS0 -nolisten tcp -I &>/dev/null

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 08 2005,18:10

Can you post the file from the older version of DSL?

It might not be called .xserverrc back then. If so, snoop around. It might exist under a different name.

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 08 2005,18:50

In 0.4.10 cat .xserverrc shows no such file or directory.

cat xsetup is

exec /usr/bin/X11/Xfbdev -2button -nolisten tcp -I &>/dev/null

That's about as close to the other file as I can find so far. I'll keep looking.
I noted that when configuring xsetup while booting 0.4.10, the setup dialogue does not ask for a COM port, while the other versions do.

Any other info I can provide, just ask.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 08 2005,18:53

How about

ls -l /dev/mouse

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 08 2005,19:15

HMMM yes...

In 0.4.10, ls -l /dev/mouse
/dev/mouse -> /dev/ttyS1

In 1.5, ls -l /dev/mouse is
/dev/mouse: No such file or directory

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 08 2005,19:49

Thanks cbagger01, you set me in the right direction.

I created /dev/mouse, made ln -s /dev/ ttyS1 /dev/mouse, ran xsetup.sh and set it to COM2, and the serial mouse works just fine.

Thanks again for all responses,
regards, netcrawl.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 09 2005,14:10

FYI,

Linux device ttyS1 is usually "COM2" in MSWindows terminology.

You should be able to boot with

dsl xsetup

and then choose this for your mouse port.

Posted by netcrawl on Dec. 09 2005,16:05

I had in fact used dsl xsetup several times, and tried all the COM ports (ttyS0 to ttyS3) and the serial mouse would not function.

Once I ran 'ls -l /dev/mouse' on both DSL versions, the difference was obvious so I manually created the /dev/mouse file and the sym-link to ttyS1 which of course is COM2.