[SOLVED] Linux Mint 9 : Mouse pointer lock issue

[PrinceSharma]

Hi,

I've been using Mint 9 on my Laptop from some time, so far so good.
However one problem troubling me from some time, is whenever I lock the screen and then unlock it, the mouse pointer/curser gets locked for an indefinite time. Then there lefts no option for me except a forceful shutdown/reboot.

In fact, for the synaptic touch-pad that my laptop has, I always have to press fn key + f8 twice to unlock the mouse pointer at every start up but even the same trick doesn't work in my above mentioned problem.

Please help.

PS : I have created the same thread in Ubuntu thread 6 days ago, but nobody even noticed

[rokytnji]

Can you hit Ctrl+Alt+t when mouse is froze and open a terminal

Type in

top

and see what it tells you.

Also if terminal opens you can shutdown from there using the

sudo shutdown -h now

command also. I don't run Mint (I won't be of much help because of this )so I don't know if Ctrl+Alt+Back Space or Ctrl+Alt+Delete is enabled also for shutting down from there instead of doing a hard reset (which is not a great thing to do by the way).

Have you downloaded the

Read the Linux Mint 9 User Guide

PDF and read it yet from

Download - Linux Mint

More info on what your gear is (laptop) and including readout from

dmesg |grep mouse

will help also.


Just download pdf and save to /home/documents folder and read when you have some free time. Happy Trails, Rok

[PrinceSharma]

Hi Linux biker (I know you are )

No, I can't do anything of any of the combinations - Ctrl+Alt+t OR Ctrl+Alt+Back Space OR Ctrl+Alt+delete , nothing helps, I tried all already, it simply freezes and does nothing.
I have the User Guide, let's see where it's gonna help me regarding this.
Will post the output when I'll be in front of the system.

Thanks Mate.
(Me too using Mint from 1.5 months only, otherwise I'm a RedHat fella, new to *Deb* thingie)

[rokytnji]

Just so you know. It may not be a debian thing. Your hardware might be getting too hot and causing mouse and desktop to freeze also. A can of compressed air and removing access covers and blowing it out on your netbook might be in order maybe also. I run a conky on mine (cuz I run Icewm mostly) that I edited to give me temps,fanspeed, battery strength, etc... so I could keep track of what my gear is doing. I run a Asus EEEPC 900 with 2 SSD drives with AntiX 8.5 Full Iso and also boot and run Puppeee Beta 4.3.7 off a external SD card as a dual boot.

Good Luck with it, Rok

[PrinceSharma]

Hi Biker,

Below is the output -

prince-mint9 ~ # dmesg | grep -i mouse
[    0.448139] input: Macintosh mouse button emulation as /devices/virtual/input/input4
[    0.499803] mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[   15.667686] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1

I doubt it's because of the heat or something related to hardware, as it happens even if the uptime is less than 15 mins, temperature seems always pretty decent to me. I'm seriously thinking about using Conky though.
I'm still .

[rokytnji]

Not a expert. Just a Biker as you know.

But key message to google is

isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1

Gentoo wiki has good info on how to fix this error

Synaptics Touchpad
If you have ACPI enabled in your kernel and load the ipw2100 module (for the wireless LAN), the Synaptics Touchpad will not work correctly and you will find these lines in your dmesg:

Code: dmesg of PS2 mouse (touchpad) issue

psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 - driver resynched.
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 4
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 lost sync at byte 1
psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio2/input0 - driver resynched.

In this case, add the parameter i8042.nomux=1 to your kernel loading directive (if you use GRUB it is in the menu.lst file).

From Here


Which basically says. If run grub legacy (Grub 1) instead of Grub 2. You can go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and at the end of kernel line type in

i8042.nomux=1

and save edit of file. If using Grub 2 (which I avoid using still) you will have to use the Link in my signature and look for how to do this (I have no idea)

gksu nautilus

then password should open your file manager as root user so you can edit text file with gedit or whatever Mint uses for a text editor (I forget as it's been ages since I ran Mint)

[PrinceSharma]

Bikes and Linux, always a deadly combo.

That's going to be useful, my bad I didn't even google the message.
Will keep you updated about the progress, fella!

Thanks a ton.

[PrinceSharma]

Hey rokytnji,

I didn't know Grub2 is going to give me such a trouble, I followed each and every word from Grub 2 guide, no luck. Gosh, I was happy with the traditional Linux style.

It's better I would rethink continuing with the sexy Mint, I'm much comfortable with grub, I'm already in dilemma in going back to Fedora / O'Suse or to something serious like
Arch/Vector or Slackware .

Mods, you can please close this thread.

[rokytnji]

You can close the thread using thread tools tab at top of thread.

I am avoiding Grub 2 also when possible. Uses a script to run a script IMO. Grub 1/Legacy I can still handle and move around in it OK. You should have the option to install grub legacy in Mint 9 if I am not mistaken. When Debian moves to Grub2. I will be trying to figure out how to keep grub legacy on my installs, Did not like Lilo but a lot of folks are comfortable using it. To each their own.

Happy Trails, Rok

Edit; Just another alternative that you can look at for you.

nFluxOS Linux

MEPIS | Now Shipping Versions 8.0.15 and 8.5.03

Main Page - antiX

[PrinceSharma]

Thanks Biker mate,

Last time I tried using kernel update in Mint 8, it didn't boot up so I'm not taking the risk of installing grub legacy on 9.
The only concern I'm facing while installing Slackware is Lilo error at boot time, I guess I'm gonna first figure that out and will come back for help if needed.

Thanks a bunch for all the help, I'm closing the thread.