Please help a frustrated BCS member with a Linux sysadmin problem

[John Abreau]

Jonathan Lettvin <disquick at tiac.net> writes:
>> I have been asking for help dealing with a hardware problem for a week or so.
>> I have posted help requests in comp.os.linux.help and comp.os.linux.setup.
>> I have also emailed "InfoMagic" from whom I purchased the SlackWare 3.0 CD-ROMs.
>> So far, I haven't gotten even one human to respond.
>> 
>> The problem is that my mouse doesn't work quite right.
>> Here are the few things I can say for sure.
>> 
>> The following two commands give me responses (but garbage only) to the mouse.
>>         test-mouse -m /dev/psaux -t ms
>>         test-mouse -m /dev/psaux -t ps2
>>.......
>> I have a Microsoft Serial mouse 2.0 on a converter plug to RS232 9 pin.
>> Can you suggest how to make this mouse work?
>> 
>> My system is Slackware 3.0 on a Pentium.

"test-mouse" must be specific to Slackware 3.0; I don't have that on my 
systems. Do you have "gpm" on your system? That's the preferred mouse driver 
for text mode use.

Are you plugging your mouse into a serial port? If your 9-pin serial port
is COM1: under DOS, then it would be /dev/ttyS0 on Linux. I'm not sure
what /dev/psaux is offhand, but I'd guess that's for a busmouse. 

-- 
--
John Abreau / Director, BCS Linux & Unix User Group / jabr at bcs.org
The Boston Computer Society / 101 First Avenue / Waltham, MA 02154
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