Debian, 2.6 kernels and PS/2 mouse redux

From: Gary Dale (garydale_at_rogers.com)
Date: 04/17/04 

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 15:39:49 GMT

I've tried 2.6.3. and 2.6.5 and I get the same result Andrea reported
earlier. I don't know if she ever got it working, but I can't. The
advice from Dances with Crows and I R A Darth Aggie didn't help. My core
pointer devices are configured properly as per their instructions. This
configuration works when I boot with a 2.4.x kernel.

When I ignore mouse errors in X, it will start - but without the mouse
working. Apparently the mouse really is not being recognized (it's a
logitech optical)!

I just tried 2.6.5 on another machine - an IBM Thinkpad A22E - with the
same results. X won't start because it can't find the psaux mouse. In
both cases I'm using the 686 build of the kernel running on Celeron
processors (1G & 800M respectively). Other than that, the machines are
quite different.

Andrea also suggested doing a modprobe mousedev. That apparently worked
for her. Surprisingly, it also worked for me when I tried it on the
Thinkpad - but only if I boot to a text console and enter modprobe
mousedev. When I added mousedev to /etc/modules then did an
update-modules, I could boot to X but the mouse wouldn't work. The same
thing happened on my desktop. The mouse was reported as being loaded but
it wouldn't work in X.

In both cases the XFree86 log showed the mouse being loaded when X
started. They were simply unresponsive to movement or buttons.

Anyone have any ideas why my mice won't work properly in 2.6.x? Call me
finicky but I'm not going to keep booting to a text console just to run 2.6.

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