cant get serial mouse up

Message

adakadavule · #1 Post by **adakadavule** » Mon 04 Sep 2006, 10:53

Hey ppl,
I hav this antique P2 machine lying around my house ,so i thought ill make it puppy after hearing a lot bouddit.i hav a 52x cd rom,256 ram n al d stuff ,but as i said d machine s an antique,so it has a serial mouse.i booted puppy n it booted fine n all,but d mouse doesnt respond.no movement.i tried d keyboard n mouse wizard n tried out all serial ports ttsy1-3 to no avail.this pc doesnt av a usb port too. so i cant plug in an usb mouse,pls help ppl,i realy nid to get this done for my kid brother.

BarryK · #2 Post by **BarryK** » Mon 04 Sep 2006, 13:32

You need to tell us what version of Puppy you're using.
In very recent versions I thought that we had finally licked the serial mouse
problems.

ICPUG · #3 Post by **ICPUG** » Mon 04 Sep 2006, 18:10

I thought the serial mouse problems were licked too. However, I have noticed with Puppy 2.01 that sometimes I boot up (frugally) and the mouse doesn't work and sometimes it does. Not quite as bad as it used to be, but the problem has reappeared. Haven't tried 2.02 yet in this machine.

ICPUG

pmshah · #4 Post by **pmshah** » Mon 04 Sep 2006, 20:38

I used to have very similar problem with my old time perfectly functioning 486 machine. Only version of Linux that did a proper job of recognising the hardware were Slackware & Caldera. Suse & Redhat failed miserably. At the time I did not have access to any other distros.

One way of getting around this problem was to keep moving the mouse during the boot process. Most times it was then recognised.

ezeze5000 · #5 Post by **ezeze5000** » Mon 04 Sep 2006, 22:53

I was installing puppy-2.10 on an old P1 and it wouldn't load the serial mouse.
Come to find out it has ps2 mouse support, but no ps2 interface
to plug the mouse into.

I dug out some hardware I had laying around and the ps2 mouse works perfectly.

It also had USB support with no interface to plug in accessories. (it does now)

A lot of those old boards have the support built in but the cheap companies putting the PC together just didn't want to go to the expense of making them useable.

I hope this helps.

BarryK · #6 Post by **BarryK** » Tue 05 Sep 2006, 02:32

Well, if you are having trouble with the serial mouse, try this:

# puppyserialdetect

...that will confirm whether the serial mouse is detected or not, or perhaps
mis-detected.
There was one case awhile back where the serial mouse appeared to
'puppyserialdetect' as a serial modem -- I was able handle that special case,
so if there are more special cases maybe can handle those also.

gliezl · #7 Post by **gliezl** » Tue 05 Sep 2006, 03:26

I am using Puppy 2.02 with a /dev/psaux optical mouse. The problem is, it is not detected. So I unplugged then replugged the mouse, then its working. It's wierd. Same scenario also happened in SLAX 5.1.6 but when I use Puppy 1.08R1 no problem.

BarryK · #8 Post by **BarryK** » Tue 05 Sep 2006, 08:38

gliezl,
Puppy2 doesn't actually detect a ps/2 mouse, as I don't know how to.
Instead, the 'puppyserialdetect' program is used to detect if there is a serial
mouse, then a check is done to see if there is a usb mouse, if none of those
detected then it is assumed to be a ps/2 mouse.

So, could you also try that command:
# puppyserialdetect
to see if a false-serial-mouse is getting detected?

Do you have any usb devices plugged in? If so, I'm wondering if Puppy could
be mis-detecting one of those.

gliezl · #9 Post by **gliezl** » Wed 06 Sep 2006, 03:10

BarryK wrote:Do you have any usb devices plugged in? If so, I'm wondering if Puppy could
be mis-detecting one of those.

Yes, you're correct. It might be mis-detecting the USB web cam attached to the pc. I'll try removing that device before booting... I'll post my results later.

Thanks Barry.

adakadavule · #10 Post by **adakadavule** » Thu 07 Sep 2006, 14:44

This antique box doesnt hav a usb port-im not lying.N all ts got connected to it is a keyboard(serial) n mouse(serial).I l try what u ppl said n post d results soon,hope it works,den i l hav sum use for dat box n my bro can use it

BarryK · #11 Post by **BarryK** » Thu 07 Sep 2006, 23:40

adakadule,
will you please try this and report what it returns:

# puppyserialdetect

hayden · #12 Post by **hayden** » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 02:09

I am having similar problems with an old machine. From what I can see as things fly by me on the screen, serial detection is running on boot and deciding the machine has a PS/2 mouse. It does not. Also, when X shuts down, it tells me it is using a PS/2 mouse, which would explain why the actual serial mouse has no effect. On the motherboard, there is a 2X4 pin connector with nothing attached. I have a connector that is 2X4 on one end and PS/2 on the other but it has some holes plugged in a way that makes it impossible to attach. The BIOS allows me to enable or disable PS/2 mouse support. I disabled it.

Is there a configuration file somewhere that I can just edit to set the mouse manually? If so, is there a command-line editor in Puppy? (Something like pico.)

hayden · #13 Post by **hayden** » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 02:21

On boot I see

puppyserialdetect 1 2

and when I run it at the command line I get no output and no error message.

BarryK · #14 Post by **BarryK** » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 08:22

hayden,
That's odd. If you have a serial mouse, running 'puppyserialdetect' should
return some output.
...so, puppyserialdetect is definitely not perfect.
What kind of mouse, like model/make do you have?
Anything unusual that you know of about the serial port?
...perhaps try another serial mouse?

Sage · #15 Post by **Sage** » Fri 15 Sep 2006, 06:55

There are utilities and loop-back test plugs to check the serial port. This is essential in cases like this. I use Checkit under DOS and a home-made D9 plug fitted with l.e.d. s. All this stuff is on the Web - somewhere. (So long since I made this up, can't remember the origins!). There used to be a BIG problem with wiring between the m/b header pins and the backplane D9 socket. Three different wiring patterns were in use. Mainly, pins were wired to the ribbon cable either first strand to pin1, second strand to pin2, etc OR second strand across to pin6, 3rd to pin2, etc. The third arrangement was less common. It may be possible to unscrew the shield behind the D9 to inspect which arrangement has been used, if a test plug isn't used. But after that, it is necessary to know which wiring pattern the mouse expects! And, you've guessed, a few early types of mice used 'non-standard' wiring arrangements.................

Give you a clue: try another brand of mouse!
Experience suggests that, if using serial mice, keep a bag of a dozen or so to trial. Cost is not involved - folks willing give you their old ones.

Delboy · #16 Post by **Delboy** » Fri 15 Sep 2006, 11:08

I think this is the correct thread for this.
Hello Puppy people. I am retrying new Puppys for the first time in 6 months+ after a lengthy layoff when I just used it really on my Toshiba Portege (Simplepup with XFCE to be exact). I am now really keen to get Puppy2.1 seamonkey onto my main PC box which is getting on a bit:-

5 year old PC. with via motherboard and embedded NForce graphics etc.
256 RAM, philips CD drive (creaky), Memorex two button serial mouse with middle wheel, cheapo "Office" keyboard (which came with it's own cd Winsoftware) Win98 installed.

. I have booted up many linux distros over the years on this machine with the only real problems being Nvidia graphics card problems in slackware based distros and some CD drive boot failures. I have got round a persistent CD drive failure to boot Puppy (+ several other distros) by a poor mans install of copying puppy files to hard drive C:\ directory where I created a idehd file too. Latest Wake2pup2.img boot floppy booted files fine, found marker file and started loading puppy with loads of processes going by 'OK' until I got this problem:-

"Puppyserialdetect detecting.... "(using option 3. from the previous menu - 'force acpi', I then get a "1 2 3" on this line) then it goes to the next line and the cursor just blinks for ever.

I have tried booting with the other two menu options 'acpi on', 'acpi off' and the same thing happens but without the "1 2 3"
I have tried booting with the mouse disconnected but it's the same.
This never happened before on this equipment with older 1.xx series Puppy isos or any other distros.
Any ideas how to get round this will most appreciated.
oh yeah, Congrats BarryK on the deserved distrowatch award.

hayden · #17 Post by **hayden** » Fri 15 Sep 2006, 12:20

Hi Sage,

I have CheckIt and loop-back plugs and concede that this is an odd ball mouse (actually a trackball keyboard!-) but I don't think I can blame it on the mouse or the serial port connector because this mouse works fine in Win98 SE and in Damn Small Linux 3.0 on the same machine.

The messages go by too fast to read but I think DSL finds the mouse at ttyS0 and Puppy sees it at psaux. So I think it is Puppy that is out of touch with reality!-) If I remember correctly, in FreeBSD I would fix this by editing a line in a text configuratin file, but I do not know if such a file exists in Puppy nor its name nor location. Or even where I might find documentation. Any clues?

hayden · #18 Post by **hayden** » Fri 15 Sep 2006, 12:41

Hi Delboy,

I have no idea what is causing your problem but I suspect it is whatever comes AFTER serial port detection. Unfortunately, things scroll by too quickly for me to be able to tell what that is.

Sage · #19 Post by **Sage** » Fri 15 Sep 2006, 12:55

dmesg provides the boot messages? Some/most of them. A better man than I will explain, eg MU !?!
Those trackball and touchpad k/b s are weird. They need special drivers for anything except 'doze. Are special drivers available - NO!!

mike thompson · #20 Post by **mike thompson** » Sun 17 Sep 2006, 02:01

To adakadavule: if you want to run puppyserialdetect, type
<ctrl> <alt> backspace to get out of X after you've booted. This will bring you to the # prompt that BarryK mentioned.

I had the same problem as adakadavule, ran puppyserialdetect, and it showed the modem and then the mouse on /dev/ttys0. I have an old 1995 pc with a Pentium I and 64 Mbyte RAM, so I was choosing option 2, acpi=off, during boot. I was seeing the message "... and mouse psaux" when X started, which seemed wrong. Anyway, I switched to option 1 acpi=on, and now I see the message "and mouse ttys0" when X starts up. The mouse works. Have no idea why, but thought I'd post this anyway.

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