inactive mouse in Fedora GNOME

[fionbarr]

I just installed Fedora 2 on an empty hard disk in my Sony PC from a DVD packaged in a 'Fedora for Dummies' book...the installation was easy but I can't get the mouse to work in GNOME. The 2nd hard drive is in a XP box but I boot one or the other OSs. I can get to a terminal and type but I can't use GNOME without the mouse.

I'd REALLY appreciate some ideas...I spent some time at B&N today going through books to see if I could see what is going on.

Fedora knows my mouse is a generic Ps2 wheel mouse but it doesn't go.

[fatTrav]

yeah, it would be kinda difficult to use GNOME without a mouse. ;)

ok, first thing's first. let's check your X conf file. it is located at /usr/X11. cd /usr/X11 will get you into that directory.

Now, the file is either xorg.conf or XF86Config (XF86Config-4). We need to open it with an editor, I like vim so I'd suggest usign vim. 'vim filename' will open it. You can use the arrow keys to scroll around or the {,} keys to move up/down. Look for something like this

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZaxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

This tells Xwindows your mouse settings. I have a regular logitech opti wheel mouse. The device line tells us which device is configured to be the mouse. To close a file you hit esc and then :q .

Post that portion of you X config file.

You can always re-run the configurator for X.

Xconfigurator or 'Xorg -configure' should do the trick. usualy it gets things right...

Also, look in /var/log for an Xorg.log or XF86.log or something named kinda like that. You can use vim to open it and read it for errors. Any errors would be most helpful in solving this.

[fionbarr]

I found xorg.conf in /etc/X11R6...

when I ran '/usr/X11R6/bin/Xorg -configure' as it says in my book I got an error saying the conf file was wrong (this had the device as /dev/psaux)...I edited the file to look like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

and the log file looked like this:

Xorg is not able to detect your mouse.
Edit the file and correct the Device.

[fatTrav]

take a look in /dev/input and maybe experiment with the options there. maybe change it to moust0 ?

[fionbarr]

I tried mouse0...I'll look in /dev/input and see what possibilities there are.

I really appreciate your help.

Thanks (you'll most likely hear from me again)

[fatTrav]

no problem. that's why we are all here. keep me posted on this problem.