Wireless mouse for laptop

[ufarmer]

I am trying to get a wireless USB mouse (Logitech LX8 ) to work with Ubuntu 8.10 on my laptop. I'll be happy just to get the right and left buttons and the scroll wheel working.

Any advice is appreciated.

[labinnsw]

Did you plug it in after or before starting up? What have you tried so far.

[ufarmer]

I plugged it in, noticed that it wasn't fully functional, and rebooted. This didn't improve the behaviour. I edited the xorg.conf file according to a suggestion that I found googling the problem but this had no effect. So far that's all I've done.

[coffeeaddict22]

Hi,
Have you tried plugging it into another PC? I've had a couple of Logitech mice, and they've always worked out of the box (I gave up a few months back and bought a Bluetooth mouse to stop me knocking the receiver). If it's working on another PC (or even better on the same PC, another USB port), then there are a couple of things you can try.

lsusb may give you enough information to figure out the problem. however, I suspect xinput is the command that is your friend here.
Start with xinput list --short
That should give you the name of the mouse; then type in xinput list-props "xxxxxxxx"
replacing the x's with the name that came up. that'll provide you with some info on what the kernel thinks your mouse can do.

xinput can also be used to configure the mouse, but probably best to start at the beginning...

[labinnsw]

Was this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=684843) the post you used? In particular entry #18

[ufarmer]

Here is the output from xinput list-props:

>> xinput list-props "Logitech USB Receiver"
Device 'Logitech USB Receiver':
Device Enabled: 1
Middle Button Emulation: 2
Middle Button Timeout: 50
Wheel Emulation Inertia: 10
Wheel Emulation: 0
Wheel Emulation X Axis: 0, 0
Wheel Emulation Y Axis: 4, 5
Wheel Emulation Timeout: 200
Wheel Emulation Button: 4
Drag Lock Buttons: 0

[ufarmer]

Was this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=684843) the post you used? In particular entry #18

That was the first one I tried. I have tried a few others since then. In every case editing my xorg.conf file according to the "solution" causes X to crash.

[coffeeaddict22]

OK, so that looks like most of it should work. What exactly isn't working/ what's the abnormal behaviour?
And typing in xinput list | grep Logitech -A15 should tell you a bit more- like how many buttons X thinks you've got available. What does it output?

[ufarmer]

The output is:

>> xinput list | grep Logitech -A15
"Logitech USB Receiver" id=6 [XExtensionPointer]
Num_buttons is 32
Num_axes is 2
Mode is Relative
Motion_buffer is 256
Axis 0 :
Min_value is -1
Max_value is -1
Resolution is 1
Axis 1 :
Min_value is -1
Max_value is -1
Resolution is 1
"Video Bus" id=7 [XExtensionKeyboard]
Num_keys is 248
Min_keycode is 8

The problems with the mouse are that it doesn't track well -- really disliking tracking to the right -- and that left clicking works only sporadically. The scroll wheel and right clicking seem to work just fine.

[coffeeaddict22]

I could be being cynical, but all your X settings look fine, and the behaviour is a bit unusual. Have you tried it on a different computer? The fact it's tracking abnormally is ... odd. Has it got something stuck on the bottom of it? Have you tried new batteries?
What does sudo cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log |grep Logitech look like? Is there any message that looks like the mouse has spat the dummy?

[ufarmer]

The output is:

>> cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep Logitech
(II) config/hal: Adding input device Logitech USB Receiver
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: always reports core events
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: Device: "/dev/input/event2"
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Found x and y relative axes
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Found 8 mouse buttons
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Configuring as mouse
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Logitech USB Receiver" (type: MOUSE)
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: YAxisMapping: buttons 4 and 5
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: EmulateWheelButton: 4, EmulateWheelInertia: 10, EmulateWheelTimeout: 200
(EE) Logitech USB Receiver: Read error: No such device
(II) config/hal: removing device Logitech USB Receiver
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Close
(II) config/hal: Adding input device Logitech USB Receiver
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: always reports core events
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: Device: "/dev/input/event2"
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Found x and y relative axes
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Found 8 mouse buttons
(II) Logitech USB Receiver: Configuring as mouse
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Logitech USB Receiver" (type: MOUSE)
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: YAxisMapping: buttons 4 and 5
(**) Logitech USB Receiver: EmulateWheelButton: 4, EmulateWheelInertia: 10, EmulateWheelTimeout: 200

The batteries are brand new. There's nothing stuck to the bottom. And it works like a charm when I plug it into my desktop computer -- which is only running kernel 2.6.18. Is it possible that the touchpad on the laptop is interfering with the mouse?

[coffeeaddict22]

Could be, but laptops all have touchpads so it seems unlikely. Have you run xinput test 'Logitech USB Receiver' (those ticks are single quotes) and watched the output? What happens when you click the buttons that aren't working? And when you move the mouse to the right, what does xinput report to the terminal?

[ufarmer]

xinput test 'Logitech USB Receiver' basically confirms what I am seeing. Tracking does not always register and neither does left clicking. The other buttons all seem to register. It's strange the the mouse works no problem with the 2.6.18 kernel and not with 2.6.27. Well, it works as a two button mouse with a scroll wheel, the other buttons are inactive. But it tracks and clicks properly.

With 2.6.27 the behaviour is completely inconsistent. Sometimes it works perfectly for a few minutes and sometimes it won't track at all and none of the buttons work either. It's very strange. Not working is one thing, but working/not working sporadically seems to be another.

Where are the mouse drivers installed in 8.10? There's nothing in my xorg.conf file about a mouse. I would be happy if I could use another driver and get a working mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel.

[coffeeaddict22]

xorg.conf seems to be being gradually deprecated, and at least for input it's no longer useful- any settings in there are ignored. They're now kept in files under /etc/hal/fdi/policy. Have a look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Input for some good info. You should be able to alter the fix you used to modify the xorg.conf file earlier to a format that will be recognised.

I remain suspicious it's a little more complicated than that though. The mouse tracking being off only in one direction (and an intermittent but OS dependent button problem) suggests there's something interfering with the mouse. It might be worth looking at cat proc/interrupts to see if you have an IRQ conflict. Post it back if you want more help; you might get someone smarter than me... there's a wiki page at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingIRQProblems that may help.

[ufarmer]

Here's the output, I'm not sure how to read it

:>> cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0 CPU1
0: 12735207 12783470 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 2031 1912 IO-APIC-edge i8042
8: 27 15 IO-APIC-edge rtc0
9: 43522 43719 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi
12: 273793 273375 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 27008 27034 IO-APIC-edge ata_piix
15: 173799 171006 IO-APIC-edge ata_piix
16: 12610 13095 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb5, yenta
17: 3069445 3030384 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb6, ohci1394, HDA Intel
18: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb7, mmc0
19: 1 2 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb8
20: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb1
21: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb2
22: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb3
23: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb4
217: 603349 595524 PCI-MSI-edge iwlagn
218: 19105 20093 PCI-MSI-edge eth0
NMI: 0 0 Non-maskable interrupts
LOC: 12360152 14622840 Local timer interrupts
RES: 2631935 2715625 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL: 230 170 function call interrupts
TLB: 160500 159578 TLB shootdowns
SPU: 0 0 Spurious interrupts
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

I'll check out those other resources you mentioned.

[ufarmer]

So it turns out that I made a typo with the first thing I tried. If I do this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4636059&postcount=9) the mouse works much better but still has occasional problems tracking and left clicking.

[ufarmer]

Correction: Now that I have been using the mouse for a while I would say it is only slightly better.

[coffeeaddict22]

Did you create a HAL .fdi file or alter xorg.conf?

[ufarmer]

I edited xorg.conf.

[ufarmer]

It may be too soon to tell for sure, but I upgraded to 9.04 and it seems to have resolved my mouse issues. The update manager actually commented out my change to xorg.conf. :-)

[coffeeaddict22]

Excellent!
I suspect there's been some issues with the X input code. X, the window manager in Linux, has moved all the input information from xorg.conf to separate files in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/, and it looks like it's ignoring xorg.conf except for display parameters. There's a series of forum posts here and elsewhere with similiar problems; metacity has caused issues, incorrect mouse driver settings at others.

If it recurs, converting the xorg.conf settings to a fdi file format is probably the next thing to try, but lets hope that's not required!

[ufarmer]

Yes, I'll be happy if everything decides to just work now. :-) Thanks for all your help coffeeaddict22.