Re: ps/2 mouse problem with KVM switch

From: Marko Macek
Date: Fri Feb 13 2004 - 12:42:07 EST


Vojtech Pavlik wrote:

Sadly enough, there is a soft reset command in the PS/2 protocol, and
the PS/2 interface is designed for hotplug, and because of that Linux
2.6 can easily handle hotplugging of both PS/2 keyboards and mice,
including type detection, etc, BUT the KVM switches don't use that,
because Windows historically doesn't support unplugging a PS/2 mouse.

If the mouse gets into confusing state, I can "replug" it into the KVM switch (while in Windows) and it works fine after that. I have also noticed that when Windows is doing "resume" I must not switch away before it is if I want my mouse to work (otherwise I will need to replug).

For Linux, I also need to switch from X to console and back when the mouse is "confused".

With 2.4 I repeat the the 2 steps described above my mouse works (incl wheel) on both machines after that.

The most ugly part of the KVM switch in this play is that while the KVM
switch usually implements a virtual mouse for each of the machines, it
lets them all talk to the real one, and if they have different ideas
about what mode the mouse should be set to, well, then there goes the
road to madness.

I guess I need to figure out how to force both machines to initialize the mouse in the same way then...

Regards,
Mark


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