Mouse Help

[Optimistic]

When I installed on my Laptop today my USB mouse worked just fine, but aftter I booted into X for the first time it no longer worked. The touchpad and related buttons work, but I don't like it--I want to use a mouse. Any ideas? I tried the mouse config utility, but it didn't change anything.

A related question: I suppose that it might be a good idea to have them both work. Is this possible? Further, I really hate the tap-the-touchpad-as-a-way-to-left-click option, can I turn that off? I end up executing files that I am just trying to mouseover. I got me some big clumbsy fingers and need something to hold on to, not caress.

The laptop is a Dell Latitude.

Many thanks.

[Viro]

Ah.... you've stumbled upon the dreaded 'nobody cared' (seriously, that's what it says in /var/log/messages) bug :D Congratulations.

However, I've managed to solve the problem on my laptop, but from what I gather off the Gentoo and other forums, its a really hit and miss thing. It could be due to a lot of things, ACPI, USB 2 controllers, and in my case the sound-card.

Could you post the contents of your /var/log/messages after you boot up? Also your /etc/modprobe.conf file would be helpful.

[Optimistic]

Thanks for the tip Viro. I messed around a bit and it turns out that if I boot up with the USB mouse pluged in, then it works just fine and the touchpad is disabled (which is fine by me). Then if I boot without it pluged in, the touchpad works just fine. This is a little anoying because it would be nice to plug and play, but I really don't care right now to sort it all out. The only thing that I don't like about the situation is that I only have one USB port so I can't use my jumpdrive and mouse at the same time, but I'm just going to get a USB hub and be done with it for now.

Thanks again!