USB mice in FreeBSD (HOWTO)

[Keith Davey]

Good day all,

When I run into a problem, and manage to work it out eather of my own
accord, or as a result of the excelent help garnered from this and other
groups I like to recount it for the benifit of others who are perhapes
having this problem or may encounter it in the future.

I recently purchaced and installed an MS Intelimouse (Optical) on my
FreeBSD 4.1.1 system. Having the option I elected to install it as a
USB device insed of using the PS/2 adaptor. On boot I noted a new
device in the dmesg of /dev/ums0 <MS Intelimouse>

I loged in as root and went into /stand/sysinstall to configure the new
mouse to moused. Unfortunatly I was supprised and disapointed to find
that the list of configurable options was limited to PS/2 COMM and Bus
mice. There was no option for "Other" or user definable. (Hello install
team this might be a good improvment to make for 4.3 RELEASE). I
abandoned this effort and went into XFree86 setup to try to configure
the mouse there (as X was the only place I would probably us it
anyways). Had to work with Keyboard shortcuts to try to configure the
mouse. Fortunatly Xfree86 Setup did have an ability to set up an
optional port. I entered /dev/ums0 and hit ACCEPT. The pointer came to
life. Unfortunatly non of the 5 available buttons were functional
(Bummer deal!)

I attempted every protocal available to me from the mouse setup screen,
and every configuration of buttons but to no avail the buttons were
dead. I pluged the mouse into a Winblows box I have laying around and
it worked great. O well buttons work.....

I went to the freeBSD community next. (How do I get this to work!) Got
ansers back from "It dont work and never will" to "Just use the ps/2
adapter you fool" to "Try these options in your rc.conf file and try
again"

I liked that last anser so here is the solution for all you needing to
know:

Add the following lines to your rc.conf file:

moused_enable="YES"
moused_port="/dev/ums0" (or what ever you get in your dmesg)
mouned_type="auto" (this is typicaly default and does not need to
be set)

Reboot the box and your new mouse should be enabled in console mode.
Now go into Xfree86 Setup and point the mouse to /dev/sysmouse.
StartX and mouse away.

Thanks to all thoughs that provided assistance with this problem.

Keith Davey
Tivoli Systems

[dpc]

Funny, had you gone straight to the source (the FreeBSD FAQ) - you would
have saved yourself a lot of trouble. This link right here:
http://www.freebsd.org/FAQ/hardware.html#USBMOUSE goes through the steps for
FreeBSD 3.2 and 4.0 of setting up a USB mouse. <grin>

One thing I want to add on - if you've got fancy wheels and such on your
mouse, in /etc/XF86Config, you may have to set the protocol to IntelliMouse
to get the mouse to scroll properly - that's what I had to do with my
Logitech cordless USB guy - FreeBSD seems pretty good to me in implementing
new technologies... :-)

dpc
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"Keith Davey" <kda...@gus33.homeip.net> wrote in message
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[dpc]

p.s. Thanks for generously posting the solution you found :)

dpc
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"Keith Davey" <kda...@gus33.homeip.net> wrote in message
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