From: rhys@cs.uq.oz.au (Rhys Weatherley) Subject: Re: Linux and Mice question Date: 25 May 1992 02:28:32 GMT
In <l1vtb4INNm08@almaak.usc.edu> ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>Q1: Suppose I have a Microsoft bus mouse. To use it under DOS I
>normally put something into the config.sys file. What does one do
>under Linux?
One puts the code to drive the mouse into the application itself.
>(You can't use the DOS device driver, and it's painful writing a
>device driver from scratch....)
Unfortunately, you have to write the driver from scratch, or get someone
else to do it.
>Q2: Ditto, for a Microsoft serial mouse? (The kind which plugs into
>your COM1)?
>Q3: Which of the two is a better option? Something tells me bus mouse.
Nup. The serial mice are better. With a bus mouse, you may have to put some
code into the Linux kernel to specially handle the mouse (there's some code
for Logitech bus mice floating around that patches the kernel). With a serial
mouse, no kernel hacks are necessary - just open the serial device and go
for it. It is also possible that a FIFO can be set up (as /dev/mouse say)
that uses a generic protocol. Of course, you need to know what the mouse
protocol is, but people have already figured that out.
There is serial mouse handling code in x386, and as I mentioned above, there
is a Logitech bus mouse driver floating around as well.
I've written a generic mouse library for Linux. It has built-in support
for the mice supported by x386, plus a couple of others, and it can also make
use of externally written mouse drivers that conform to a fairly simple
protocol - either as devices or executable programs.
The first (beta) version is available on kirk.bu.oz.au as the file
/pub/pc/beta/rhys/lnx-mouselib1.tar.Z. It's not quite complete as
yet, and I need to write some docs. I'm in the process of hacking MGR to put
in support for my library. I also need to remove the GNU copyleft and put in
a less infectious Copyright message (under GNU if you use my library, you must
put the rest of the program under GNU also - which is unacceptable, as much
as I like the GNU copyleft).
Cheers,
Rhys.