Mouse stopped working when I installed to disk

Message

RayTomes · #1 Post by **RayTomes** » Fri 20 Apr 2007, 23:26

Hello All.

I am back to get seriously installed on Puppy and eventually get rid of XP. For now I am setting up a dual boot system with XP and Puppy on hard disk.

I DLed the latest release puppy 2.15CE final and burned to CD. It booted OK and ran well although I couldn't find my printer (Canon Pixma MP110). So I decided to install to a disk partition and set up a dual boot. I made a 10 GB linux ext2 partition and did the grub thing and installed puppy. It booted from the puppy OK but my mouse was no longer working (the pointer just stayed in middle of the screen). AFAIK, I didn't change anything between the CD and hard drive. Where to from here?

I just retried both ways (CD and hard drive) to see if I could spot anything. When it starts from CD it sets mouse to usb correctly. But when it started from hard drive it set mouse to ps/2. How can I over-ride this?

Thanks

Tui · #2 Post by **Tui** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 00:27

Hi Ray, A little bit of a problem, well if you got a desktop screen
with the puppy up and a mouse in the centre, hit F12, and using
up/down AND left/right keys you can get to the MOUSE WIZARD,
when there move thro' the mouse wiz with the 'TAB' key select
the USB mouse and save with the ENTER key, this should save the instruction, I haven't had this problem, I think it might work!
Must close down any open windows and go into re-boot mode.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers
Tui

Sit Heel Speak · #3 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 01:06

RayTomes wrote:How can I over-ride this?

If Tui's solution doesn't "stick" when you reboot, try adding the line

modprobe usbhid

to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local

RayTomes · #4 Post by **RayTomes** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 01:10

Thanks both, but the plot thickens. When I tried to reboot from disk, it stopped after"executing personal config script ..." and then a "#". I suspect this is because I powered down without shuting down prperly (on account of no mouse).

So I rebooted from CD and it got an error starting X... but worked on the second try. Then shut down properly and tried from disk again with same result. There was no error message just stopped at "#". It will take command but I am not sure what command to start the X windows thingy ...

2 steps backward 0 steps forward ...
no that's not the proper saying

Sit Heel Speak · #5 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 01:25

RayTomes wrote:There was no error message just stopped at "#". It will take command but I am not sure what command to start the X windows thingy ...

Try xwin

It isn't shutting down to full poweroff on my machine either when I tell it to from the menu, but there have been fixes posted for that, and I'm sure I'll find one that works...meanwhile, I type xwin when it sticks at the command prompt. It works.

RayTomes · #6 Post by **RayTomes** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 02:50

OK, the xwin started it up. It always says it didn't work the first time but does the second. Weird?

But F12 did not activate the arrow keys. I tried both sets of arrows, the num ones and the others.

I will try the change to rc.local now. I assume that I can do this from the CD boot, as it is using the same puppy that is on the hard disk (isn't it?)

Sit Heel Speak · #7 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 04:14

RayTomes wrote:OK, the xwin started it up. It always says it didn't work the first time but does the second. Weird?

Yes, I have no idea why it would do that.

RayTomes wrote:I will try the change to rc.local now. I assume that I can do this from the CD boot, as it is using the same puppy that is on the hard disk (isn't it?)

mmm...dunno. You say you've "installed Puppy to its own partition" but this phrase is ambiguous. Do you mean you created / as the top directory on Puppy's 10GB ext3 partition, with a full Linux subdir system under it including /etc, or do you mean you put the files vmlinuz, initrd.gz, pup_215.sfs, and pup_save.2fs on that partition, with /etc and all other subdirs compressed into the filesystem-within-a-file pup_save.2fs? If the latter case then yes, the edits you make from a liveCD boot will be persistent across boots no matter whether you are booting from the liveCD or from the disk using grub. If the former, dunno, I've never tried booting from liveCD when a full HD install is present. You might have to use Menu-Filesystem-MUT to first mount the ext3 partition and then be careful that you are editing the /etc/rc.d/rc.local within that subdir on the mounted hard disk. Anybody?

RayTomes · #8 Post by **RayTomes** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 05:24

Oh, I mean that I used the puppy install to disk which copied the various files there and I made a 1 GB puppy whatsit file. The partition is actually ext2, is that significant?

Anyway, I put the line of code in as you suggested...
modprobe usbhid
after booting from CD and rebooted. However it still starts up with ps/2 mouse.

Is there a way to start again from CD and create the disk puppy file entirely again that would have it set as usb mouse?

Sit Heel Speak · #9 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 06:00

RayTomes wrote:...The partition is actually ext2, is that significant?

Shouldn't matter, no.

RayTomes wrote:Anyway, I put the line of code in as you suggested...
modprobe usbhid
after booting from CD and rebooted. However it still starts up with ps/2 mouse.

Come to think of it, I do recall seeing a thread in which it did take more than just running modprobe usbhid in rc.local. It was awhile back. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go look for it. Search the forum on the phrase "modprobe usbhid" with "Search for all terms" checked and, if patient, you may find it.

RayTomes wrote:Is there a way to start again from CD and create the disk puppy file entirely again that would have it set as usb mouse?

If, when you boot the CD, at the 5-second pause you enter

puppy pfix=ram

then Puppy will boot as if fresh, without mounting the pup_save.2fs file. Then you can Menu-Filesystem-MUT, mount the ext2 drive, and in the Rox window which appears right-click the pup_save.2fs file and delete it, thus to start all over again.

It might provide key clues if you supply us the brand and type of usb mouse, is it on a laptop or otherwise, and is it a USB 1 port, USB 2 port, USB PCMCIA adapter, an external USB hub, or whatever. This might jog someone's memory who remembers that long-ago thread more clearly than I.

RayTomes · #10 Post by **RayTomes** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 12:10

Well I am sending this message from puppy on hard disk.

I did a search as suggested in the messages, but did not find any that had an extra line after the one mentioned.

So I re-installed to disk (it is actually a linux install not just the 3 files) and it was just the same ... decided to use ps/2 rather than usb mouse as on CD. So I decided if you can't beat it join it and stuck a ps/2 mouse on my computer.

So thanks to everyone for their help. I will probably still need to solve this some time, but for now I am going.

Sit Heel Speak · #11 Post by **Sit Heel Speak** » Sat 21 Apr 2007, 17:14

RayTomes wrote:I did a search as suggested in the messages, but did not find any that had an extra line after the one mentioned.

No, the solution was a little more involved than just adding an extra line in rc.local.

As mentioned: the nature of your usb port and brand/model of usb mouse might give a more-experienced mind than mine the key clues.

The output of lsmod might also help.

I'll keep an eye out. If I stumble across that old thread, I'll PM you.

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Mouse stopped working when I installed to disk

Mouse stopped working when I installed to disk

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