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Gentoo Blues

post #1 of 14
10/10/04 at 8:31pm
Thread Starter 
I'm a a newbie outside of windows, and I've been wanting to learn about Linux for quite some time. My boss recommended that I try out gentoo, since its difficulties will ensure that I learn a lot about Linux. He was right. I have gentoo up and running but I'm having some problems.

First of all, I cannot find my xorg config file, or my x86free config file, I'm not even sure which one I'm using. I'm using KDE 3.3.0. The only file i can find is xorg.conf.example, which is in :/etc/X11

Also, i cannot seem to get my mousewheel to scroll right

Any ideas?

Oh, im on a sager 4380, if that helps
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post #2 of 14
10/10/04 at 9:29pm
Generaly it will be located in /etc/X11/. You may try looking in /var/log/ for a log file that references Xorg. When you say the mouse wheel won't scroll right, what do you mean? If it's external you will need to edit the config file.
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post #3 of 14
10/10/04 at 10:38pm
Thread Starter 
Ok the easiest way to describe the mousewheel behavior would be to describe them as individual buttons

Left Click = mouse1
Right Click = mouse2
Middle Click = mouse3
Wheel Up = mouse4
Wheel Down = mouse 5

Buttons 1 through 3 work fine, 4 and 5 do nothing.

My touchpad has mouse1, 2, 4, and 5 (two big buttons and two little ones for scrolling), and it acts as though the button that should be mouse4 is mouse3

I'm assuming that I will need to find my X config file, but it isn't in /etc/X11, the only file there is the config example

Edit: One more thing, how do I configure the synaptics pointing device? I emerged it, but cannot figure out how to start it or configure it
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post #4 of 14
10/11/04 at 8:29am
Your X config is always located in /etc/X11 when your using gentoo. If you dont have an xorg.conf file do you have a XF86Config file? or a XF86Config-4 file? either one of those would be your current xconfig file. If you dont have either of these and still no xorg.conf copy the example as xorg.conf and that should set you up with that.

As for your mouse wheel make sure your using a driver that supports a mouse wheel first then add this line to your mouse settings section:

OPTION "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

Where 5 and 6 are the buttons that represent up and down of your mouse wheel.
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post #5 of 14
10/11/04 at 1:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjolnir
Where 5 and 6 are the buttons that represent up and down of your mouse wheel.
He means 4 and 5
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post #6 of 14
10/11/04 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eventide
Edit: One more thing, how do I configure the synaptics pointing device? I emerged it, but cannot figure out how to start it or configure it
Getting that thing to work is a bit of an annoyance. The installation should have a readme/install text file. Read it. Basically the steps are 1) recompile your kernel with event interface support and 2) write new stuff in your X config file.
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post #7 of 14
10/11/04 at 2:18pm
Thread Starter 
If I rename xorg.conf.example to xorg.conf KDE no longer boots
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post #8 of 14
10/11/04 at 2:21pm
Yes, thats because the example has some arbitrary settings that are most likely inappropriate for your environment. I honestly have no idea how your X runs without an XF86Config or xorg.conf. Get rid of the just-copied xorg.conf and run xorgconfig - that will put you through a series of prompts that should generate a proper xorg.conf (then go in and do the ZAxisMapping thing).
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post #9 of 14
10/11/04 at 8:30pm
I'm with Mikhail on the wondering how X is functioning with no apparent config file. When you get your config figured out you will most likely want to add another mouse device as a pass through device so you can use external mice if you so desire.
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post #10 of 14
10/11/04 at 8:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsmith
When you get your config figured out you will most likely want to add another mouse device as a pass through device so you can use external mice if you so desire.
All my mouse devices are automatically consolidated into a single /dev/input/mice device (the individual mouse1 and mouse2 devices are still there, of course), so I just tell X to use that. This was due to a Gentoo 1.4 install, though, so 2004 might be different.
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post #11 of 14
10/12/04 at 8:27pm
It could be, I don't recall the specifics without looking at the moment.
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post #12 of 14
10/21/04 at 3:32am
Thread Starter 
Finally figured out my xorg.conf problem: I didn't have one! I finally made one and got to work on configuring my mouse. Sadly, I couldn't get it to work even with the "ZAxisMapping" thing. A bit of googling told me that I should change the mouse option from "PS/2" to "IMPS/2." This caused the cursor to randomly move acrossed the screen and to click wildly. A little more googling revealed this to be a common problem with touchpads and usb mice.

I decided to upgrade from the 2.4.26-gentoo-r6 kernel to the 2.6.8-gentoo-r8 kernel. My scroll wheel on my USB mouse works wonderfully! But my touchpad doesn't work at all now. "cat /dev/input/mice" gets me nothing when I touch the pad, same with /dev/psaux and /dev/ttyS0. I'm not sure how to go about fixing this, I don't know if I just don't have the proper kernel options for the touchpad or if I'm not trying the right device. How would I find out what device it is?

Also, after experimenting with kernel options to get everything to work right, I finally know which ones I need (sans touchpad of course). Is there any way to revert the settings on make menuconfig back to the state it was in before I changed the config?

Sorry for being such a newb and thanks for all of the help.
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post #13 of 14
10/21/04 at 8:49am
If /dev/input/mice doesnt give you anything off the touchpad, I'm guessing the Synaptics support in the kernel is disabled. Try that.
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post #14 of 14
10/21/04 at 3:04pm
Yeah my mouse on the console was also dead until I enabled synaptics in the kernel. Yes Ido a lot of copy/paste operations.
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