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Hello all, :)

I've just recently got my paws on an old laptop - actually it is
closer to being a palmtop rather than a laptop -- it's a Toshiba
Liberetto 50CT; a PC just a little larger than a VHS tape! It's ~10
years old and the spec is not much by today's standards: no usb or
floppy, 1xPCMCIA, Pentium 75, 16MB. Right now it has Windows 95 (yuk!)
on it, but I was hoping to install linux. I've got basiclinux
installed ok but I'm having a problem regarding the mouse (my mouse is
attached to COM1: (serial), there is no PS/2 port on this laptop; I am
not sure but this laptop has a small pad built into it which acts as a
mouse - this may be set up for PS/2 but I am not sure how it works!).

In any case a mouse attached to COM1: (serial) is easier to use than
the device built into the laptop. But try as I may the mouse *refuses*
point blank to even budge in X!

I had to install xsvesa from slackware as the default X server in
basiclinux 3.5 didn't work, it just blank screened on me x.x .

I have tried using xsetup to try to link /dev/mouse to both /dev/psaux
and /dev/ttyS0 but to no avail. The mouse refuses to move at all! I
suspect there is a deeper problem to all this however I am not sure.

My main linux system is a 64 bit PC running slamd64 (that's a 64 bit
version of slackware). If I go to a command line and type "cat
/dev/mouse" if I move the mouse or click the buttons I can see that
the mouse plugged into that PC is generating data, I get lots of
characters on the screen if I try this. On the Toshiba with basiclinux
if I try "cat /dev/mouse" or even "cat /dev/psaux" or even "cat
/dev/ttyS0" I get nothing at all!

I tried to install gpm from slackware 4 and managed to get a command
line mouse working and to respond by typing "gpm" at the command line.
But cat /dev/ttyS0 and cat /dev/psaux still did nothing, i.e. I can't
see any data. I also tried doing a "gpm -R raw" at the comamnd line. A
file "/dev/gpmdata" was created by this but doing "cat /dev/gpmdata"
gave no response.

Can anyone think what the problem could be?

Thanks :)

ljones