[PLUG] Rescan for PS2 Mouse?

King Beowulf kingbeowulf at gmail.com
Fri Aug 16 23:52:43 UTC 2013


On 08/16/2013 04:28 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Aug 2013, King Beowulf wrote:
> 
>> If I remember correctly, PS/2 ports are not "hot-plug" like USB or
>> Firewire. You really should NOT unplug/plug while the computer is powered
>> on. That is one reason we've moved off special purpose ports such as
>> these.
> 
> Ed,
> 
>    Interesting. I've swapped trackballs and replaced the battery in the
> new-ish wireless one with no issues. All have USB plugs but I use a
> USB-to-PS/2 adapter which is plugged in the DIN socket on the rear of the
> host.
> 
> Rich
> 

Exactly: "new-ish" mice/KB that are USB and ship with an adaptor
autosense the interface.  So, if you leave the USB dongle connected and
just pull out the USB device, it "should" work ok since the mouse can
figure it out and the motherboard never knew that the device was
unplugged.  Same goes for swapping track balls or batteries: you do not
need to really disconnect to do that stuff (I never do).

Some newer motherboards are a bit smarter as well.

However, the PS/2 interface was not design for constant
plugging/unplugging and you can damage the the socket as well interface
electronics if you do.

This is a case of going back to first principles and the original design
spec.  What may work for a subset of hardware cannot be expected to work
generally.  it all depends on what the motherboard manufacturer did to
tweak the design.

BTW, gpm is not a mouse driver, just a server to allow cut/paste in CLI
apps when not running X.  In some cases it will cause problems when X
tries to load a mouse driver.

-Ed




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