Fedora Core 3 Belkin Crazy Mouse

[Rick Stevens]

Chris Hewitt wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-12-05 at 20:29, Info wrote:
> 
>>I just installed Fedora Core 3, no problems except that my mouse is
>>totally random until I disconnect and reconnect it.  I’m using a
>>Belkin Omniview KVM to switch between machines. 
>>
>> 
>>
>>A Google search shows several postings about this.  It seems to be a
>>known bug going back to Fedora Core 1.  
>>
>>There is a work around
>>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla...glist=123273#c5   Which suggests
>>a fix and points to another (duplicate) bug.   One posting had a long
>>set of instructions on recompiling the kernel to fix this problem. 
>>
>> 
>>
>>Since I installed from RPM  and am some what timid about recompiling
>>kernels, I wondered if there was some sort of configuration change
>>that would solve this problem.  While there may be, the writers
>>assumed that their rather cryptic postings would be understandable.  
>>
>> 
>>
>>If someone has solved this problem by editing file
>>/xxx/yyy/zzz.something  and rebooted the system, I’d sure like to
>>receive the details.   
> 
> 
> If you put "psmouse.proto=bare" in the kernel line in grub.conf it sorts
> it out (assuming a PS2 mouse) but you lose the use of the wheel. Some
> people have reported success with "psmouse.proto=imps" but I've had to
> use "bare". Funnily enough, I posted the same answer on the Fedora Core
> list yesterday.
> 
> Hope this helps.

It does help, but the real answer is to not use a Belkin KVM.  This has
been a known problem for a long time (it even effects some Windows
machines).  The problem is that the KVM stops sending mouse sync events
to the Linux box when the KVM isn't aimed at it.  Some mobos recognize
this and create "phantom" mouse events to keep things alive.  Others
don't.  I stick with Linksys or IOGear KVMs for small systems, Rose
or Omniview for bigger systems (8 ports or more).

Because of this and the completely illegal "host connection stealing"
thing they did in their routers, I NEVER recommend Belkin for anything
other than just cables.  I don't trust them as far as I could throw
their corporate headquarters.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   UNIX is actually quite user friendly.  The problem is that it's  -
-              just very picky of who its friends are!               -
----------------------------------------------------------------------