[vox-tech] Multiple Mice in X

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 04 Oct 04,  8:52 AM, Ken Bloom <kabloom at ucdavis.edu> said:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 11:21:54 -0400
> p at dirac.org (Peter Jay Salzman) wrote:
> 
> > On Mon 04 Oct 04,  8:13 AM, Hans W. Uhlig <deathguard at yahoo.com> said:
> > > Ok Ive got a laptop with bad mice and I need to be
> > > able to swap out to an external usb mouse. X doesent
> > > want to see it without me booting with it in
> > 
> > this can't be correct.  X will work perfectly even with no mouse.
> > 
> > the key is what you specify here:
> > 
> > 
> > Section "ServerLayout"
> >    Identifier  "Default Layout"
> >    Screen      "Default Screen"
> >    InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
> >    InputDevice "Generic Mouse"
> > EndSection
> > 
> > 
> > if you simply want to ignore the built in mouse, don't make reference
> > to it. in your "generic mouse" inputdevice entry (or whatever you call
> > it) make reference to /dev/input/mice (or whatever it is on your
> > system) instead of/dev/psaux (or whatever it is on your system)
> > 
> > 
> > > and then
> > > the internal mouse go haywire(They still work on
> > > occasion but they are dyeing.)
> > 
> > sounds like what happens when two applications read from the same
> > device file.
> > 
> > > how can I turn off one
> > > mouse and turn on another in X. Ive been looking but I
> > > cant seem to find it and xsetmouse doesent seem to
> > > have any function other then listing my config file.
> >  
> > as mentioned before, remove all reference to /dev/psaux in you
> > XF86Config, and just have one inputdevice entry using driver "mouse"
> > and  device"/dev/input/mice".
> 
> Isn't the kernel going to pick up from the PS/2 mouse data and put that
> on /dev/input/mice as well? That's how my XFree is configured. (Kernel
> 2.6.7 with psmouse compiled in.) If the hardware is dying and sending
> spurious events, then wouldn't /dev/input/mice get those spurious events
> too?
> 
> Perhaps working with /dev/input/mouse0 or /dev/input/mouse1 will let you
> select only useful mice? But I really haven't got a clue, so if someone
> can explain my confusion I would appreciate it.

I wasn't trying to get the device files correct -- you may be right, but I
was more interested in explaining, in general terms, what he needs to do in
order to do what he wants to do.  :)

My suggestion is correct, but he needs to figure out the device names. 

Pete