Frozen Tahrpup mouse (Solved)

[venn]

On my initial run of Tahrpup I was able to get the mouse working, created a savefile for it + Bionicpup, along with a swapfolder, and had copied files for the Newmoon browser. I then deleted these items (deleted anything that said "tahr" in it) in preparation to do a defrag before creating a swap partition do a full-install Tahr. Thinking this was all fine b/c it would just get me back down to the same situation as me putting the Tahr DVD in the 1st time, which for the most part it did.

My settings were gone + the regular initial desktop screen w/ the 2 black+white puppies looking at each other were back, along with the mouse not moving. All expected, as that's the same as when I 1st used the Tahr DVD. I then proceed to activated the mouse via tabbing down to the "Dead mouse?" Fix on the initial setup screen (setting it to a Serial mouse), X restarts, then I tab into the main puppy setup screen to set the type of mouse to ps/2 + uncheck the "mouse has a scroll wheel" box. I'm pretty sure this is all I did to get the mouse working my initial run of Tahr the real 1st time. Now the mouse just sits the middle of the screen.

In the 1st setup screen: I tried all 4 ports under the Serial option. I also tried the 1st option (above the Serial option), the USB/ps-2 line saying it's for all modern machines. In the 2nd/main setup screen: I also tried setting it as a USB mouse.

The only thing I can think of is that I deleted something I shouldn't have. On the other hand, it sort of makes no sense b/c I thought the DVD comes with everything you need to make it work - it does welcome me stating it recognizes this as being the 1st time I'm running Tahrpup. So maybe I've forgotten some step I did the last initial run to get the mouse to work?

I saw on another thread something about a #dmesg command to see the output, but I can't reach the terminal. I can really only tab+enter my way thru the setup screens, which I've done everything I can see to activate the mouse. So I'm a little dead in the water right now w/ XP as the only fully working OS. Unless some1 has any ideas.

Laptop Make + model: IBM ThinkPad T20
OS Version currently running: Windows XP Pro, Version 2002, SP3

Hard drive size (GB): 11.2

Processor (MHz): i686, Not entirely sure - BIOS says 700MHz, under System Info. Manager says "x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 3 Intel ~547Mhz", under My Computer + right click to Properties says 426MHz. What I know for sure - it has the Pentium 3 logo sticker w/ a 2nd sticker saying the computer was designed for Windows 98|2000.

RAM/Installed Physical Memory (MB): 348 (Max Upgrade to 512MB)

BIOS Version: 12/1999

[mikewalsh]

@venn :-

I have something of a similar issue with Xenialpup64. At some point since installing, I've added or done something which means the cursor and keyboard are completely unresponsive when I first get to the desktop. However, since this Puppy is so highly customized - including tons of custom scripts, half of which I don't even remember how I originally set them up! - Ill be damned if I'm going to wipe the save-folder and start all over again from scratch.

Because I use USB mice, and a wireless USB keyboard, the fix is a simple one. Pull the dongles out for 30 seconds, then re-insert them. This allows Puppy to wipe the old inodes pointing to the mouse & keyboard dongles, then re-inserting them causes new inodes to be created and re-allocated to the now "new" devices.

I have no idea if you can do this with a PS/2 device. I don't think they're PnP (plug'n'play), are they? Plus, I believe a PS/2 mouse MUST be plugged-in before you boot, so I'm guessing the trick I employ wouldn't work for you.

Apart from that, I can't think of any other ideas to offer up, I'm afraid. Others, however, may.....especially those of a more technical bent, who know all the custom command-line tricks & workarounds you might be able to try.

Sorry!

Mike.

[rockedge]

I think the PS/2 will behave the same way on occasion. Other times on different machines with the same type of Puppy Linux the PS/2 mouse had to be plugged in and present before system boots.

Some USB to PS/2 adapters will sometimes never let the device be detected

Give it a try is what I say.

Usually at some point I'll eventually even throw the kitchen sink at a problem to solve it or test it.

[mikeslr]

Just to make certain I've got this right. The problem occurs when you boot the Tahrpup DVD?

I'm wondering if there's something on the hard-drive you didn't delete which is now being found when the DVD boots and screws thing up. When you boot the DVD does it offer any options?

[venn]

I usually don't un/plug the mouse ever from its socket. I did, just to try to reestablish it anew...that's not it. I've also read somewhere ps2's are to be plugged in before booting.

I suspect mikeslr is correct. I plopped in the Bionic DVD: the mouse works fine from the getgo; it also recognized it as the initial run, bringing up the same 1st setup window.

This makes sense as I did very little inside Bionic..much more fiddling took place in Tahr. So now the problem is: What piece of the old Tahr situation is it bumping up against?

I know I deleted 2 files that started with "tahr", these were easy to find b/c they were bright, bold blue text. I did a search for "tahr" in the files + it came up w/ 3 more files ("tahr" was in the middle of the filename, so didn't catch my eye in the 1st eyeball search). So I deleted those. Plugging the Tahr DVD back in - ta-da the mouse is alive from the getgo just like in Bionic! Existential crisis averted.

Thanks for the feedback! As this is the 1st thread that I have initiated where the originating reason to create the post is solved: is there something I'm supposed to do to close the discussion, or does an admin person do that, or do these things just stay open in perpetuity?

[bigpup]

We do not close topics very much.
Only on very specific reasons and those are not very often.

If it gets solved.

You have control of the first post and the subject of the first post, is the subject of the topic.
Go to your first post.
Select edit.
Add to the end of the subject (solved)

That does not close the topic, but it does tell others, a fix was found.
Someone with a similar problem, may be able to fix their issue, the same way.

Note:
Do not do full installs.
Do frugal installs. It is a bad choice for the name, but it goes back to early days of Puppy and how little space it uses on the drive. It is frugal usage of space.
It is still the complete Puppy Linux operating system installed, but in a special way.
Some features of Puppy only work in frugal installs.

How Puppy Works
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 827#p55827
This is basically how a live Puppy CD/DVD install or a frugal install operate.