Trackpad - HELP

are you trying to make the mouse work with gpm, or with x? i don't recommend having x use gpm; x works a lot better with its own input drivers.

are you just using the touchpad, or are you using the touchpad and a usb mouse at the same time?

the touchpad should use just 'ps2.' i don't really know how the devices are set up in slackware, or if you're even using devfs... but for me, the touchpad is the same device as the external ps/2 port, '/dev/misc/psaux.' usb mice, on the other hand, which are set up by usbdevfs, are '/dev/input/mice.' if you're using devfsd, you might want to check your devfsd.conf to see which devices are being registered as which nodes.

or, another way to make sure that the device is correct - cat the device, e.g. 'cat /dev/psaux' or something. if strange characters appear when you move the mouse, that means the device is connected to the mouse properly.

the disappearing mouse cursor is a feature - when you're typing, gpm will get the cursor out of your way until you move the mouse again.

you can also try using gpm with the verbosity level increased, with the -V flag. so something like '/usr/sbin/gpm -m device -t type -V5'. (verbosity ranges from 1 to 5).

honestly, i wouldn't use gpm, period. it's not nearly as good as native input for X; the only thing it is useful for is mousing on the console, which i don't really see the point of. i only use it on a very limited basis when i'm using graphical links2 through the framebuffer without X. but whatever floats your goat...

if you have an alps touchpad, then you just can't use the synaptics-specific driver for x. generic mouse support is exactly the same.

it took me a while to find out that psaux was the right device; i wouldn't have guessed that the touchpad was linked to the auxiliary ps2 port.

why do you need gpm? like what programs do you use in the console that would facilitate the need for a mouse? or are you having X use it?

gpm is outdated; it doesn't even support z-axis mapping for a mouse wheel.

i'm not sure, but linux may not like the fact that there are two different programs, x and gpm, vying for control of the mouse. i know that my computer freezes if i have two different video drivers loaded for the same card (ati and drm). then again, i have gpm running in the background and x runs fine... i'll have to look into that.

Try the TPConfig driver for X this worked for me with Synaptic and the website states their drivers work with the Alps 'Glidepad'. Alps TPConfig Driver

If you have a synaptics pad I suggest using the TuxMobil drivers.
tuxmobil synaptics driver

tpconfig is not a driver; it's a command-line utility to configure various aspects of touchpads, like tap time and length, tapmode, etc. you would still need a driver like gpm or x's mouse driver.

that said, ratha, you may want to give tpconfig a shot anyway, because i don't know enough from this end to tell you what's wrong with your gpm. who knows, you might get lucky.

the tuxmobil synaptics driver is an x driver; gpm doesn't use external drivers.

I had the same problem. For some reason, I felt I had to have a mouse from the console, so I had gpm loading at boot. After I learned enough commands and got xdm working I quickly took it out.