#1 2016-01-08 23:21:37

Starborn

Member

From: Laniakea

Registered: 2016-01-06

Posts: 28

HOWTO make a Serial Mouse work (Seriously!)

Hello Bunsenlaboratorians,

Could it be of anyone's interest on how to make a serial mouse to work?

A what? I know that COM ports are, like, 100 years old, but I tried this, you know, just for fun. If the Admins think this does not belong here, then they may move (or delete) my posting.

I have a old, unbranded serial mouse that I could get to work in Linux Mint 13 (which is installed next to Bunsenlab). I am not a Linux expert, and I cannot remember how I got the serial mouse to work under Linux Mint (it did not take me long, I remember). But after a minute of using Google, I got to an Ubuntu "howto" page on how to make a serial mouse to work:

Serial mouse HOWTO at help.Ubuntu.com

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1) I know nothing of the COM port of my PC (an old HP "dc5100" computer that has a serial port), so I followed an online tip and in a terminal I typed this:

dmesg | grep tty

which gave me this:

[0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[1.113978] 00:04 ttyS1 at I/O x2f8 (irq = 3, base_baud = 115200) is a 16550a

I searched online and found out that ttyS1 is the COM port.

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2) I again searched and found that I needed a package called "inputattach". I installed it (with "sudo apt-get install inputattach"), followed the info at that Ubuntu page and in a terminal typed:

inputattach --help

which gave a list with a lot of "mice".
Since I don't know what brand or model the serial mouse is, I did what the Ubuntu page said and chose as mouse "--microsoft".

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3) I opened the empty file rc.local in a text editor:

sudo leafpad /etc/rc.local

and added the following line above "exit 0": inputattach --microsoft /dev/ttyS1

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4) I saved the file, rebooted - and the serial mouse works.

Awesome! It is a 3-button mouse without a scrollwheel (anyone remember those times?), however the middle button does nothing.
(Maybe there is a way to make it do something? May be worth to look into.)

I remember SUSE Linux having as phrase "Have fun". Well, it is "fun" to get something to work.

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"Horum omnium Belgae fortissimi sunt" - Caius Julius Caesar

johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,652

Website

Re: HOWTO make a Serial Mouse work (Seriously!)

Thanks for this HOWTO, Starborn!
In fact we have a forum for sharing stuff that works - rather than requests for support - "Scripts, Tutorials & Tips", and I'm moving it there now.

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...elevator in the Brain Hotel, broken down but just as well...
( a boring Japan blog (currently paused), now on Bluesky, there's also some GitStuff )

Introduction to the Bunsenlabs Boron Desktop

PackRat

jgmenu user Numero Uno

Registered: 2015-10-02

Posts: 2,658

Re: HOWTO make a Serial Mouse work (Seriously!)

Awesome! It is a 3-button mouse without a scrollwheel (anyone remember those times?), however the middle button does nothing.
(Maybe there is a way to make it do something? May be worth to look into.)

In a terminal you can use:

inputattach --help

to get all the mouse options, so instead of "inputattach --microsoft /dev/ttyS1" you can try one of the 3-button options to see if something works -

More details here

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You must unlearn what you have learned.
    -- yoda