Using your mouse.

# 4 Using your mouse.

Contents of this section

## 4.1 Testing your mouse. Selection.

Selection is a program which allows you to do mouse based 'cut- and-paste' between virtual consoles under Linux. Selection can be found as the file `selection-1.6.tar.gz` at your friendly Linux FTP site (such as `sunsite.unc.edu`), and contains instructions for getting it compiled. Some Linux distributions, such as Slackware, come with a precompiled selection binary.

When invoking selection, use the -t switch to selection to indicate which protocol your mouse is using and the -m option to indicate which mouse device you are using. The default is to use the `/dev/mouse` device, so you can omit the -m option if you have the appropriate symbolic link. For example, if you use the BusMouse protocol, selection should be run like this:

> `selection -t bm`

or if you use the PS/2 protocol:

> `selection -t ps2`

You should then be able to cut and paste text between virtual consoles using the mouse buttons. Read the documentation with selection, or do a ``man selection'' for more information on how to operate it.

There have been a couple of reports of selection not working correctly with certain laptop trackballs (under the PS/2 interface). Replacing the line

> `

>     { 0xcc,   0x00,   0x00,   0x00,   3       }   /* PS/2 */

> `

in selection's mouse.c file with the line

> `

>     { 0xcc,   0x08,   0x00,   0x00,   3       }   /* PS/2 */

> `

may help if you are having problems and can't track it down to anything else.

## 4.2 XFree86.

To use your busmouse under XFree86, you will need to set your mouse protocol type in your Xconfig file. If you have a BusMouse protocol mouse, your Xconfig should contain (including the quotes)

> `

>     Busmouse        "/dev/mouse"

> `

For PS/2 mice it should have

> `

>     ps/2        "/dev/mouse"

> `

If you have a two button mouse, it should also contain the line

> `

>     Emulate3Buttons

> `

which will allow you to emulate the use of the middle mouse button by pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously. All other mouse related lines, such as ``BaudRate'' and ``SampleRate'' should be commented out, as these have no effect on bus mice.

## 4.3 XFree86 and selection.

Unlike serial mice, you cannot share busmice between processes. This means you will have to kill any copies of ``selection'' (see section selection ) you have running before you start up Xfree86. If you try to run X with selection running, you will get errors like the following

> `

>     Fatal server error:
>     Cannot open mouse (Device or resource busy)

> `

Version 1.6 of selection allows you to terminate running copies of selection by executing

> `selection -k`

This should be done before starting up X11. You may wish to add a line containing the above command to the top of your `startx` script so that the mouse is shut down automatically. If you have an older version of selection which does not support the `-k` switch you will have to kill selection by hand.

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