optical mouse /USB / laptop

[Brian J. Conway]

>   Seems like the subject is a bad combination for linux users .. I am
not 
> able to make them work on my Sony LAPtop . I have a logitech optical
wheel 
> mouse and of all its a USB mouse.. and I also want to have the touch pad

> active when I am using the external mouse. can I do that on linux  .. if
yes 
> please tell me how.

You can, though I've never done it.  You need to have two pointer entries
in your XF86Config-4 file to do it, as I recall.  It'll be in the XFree86
documentation at www.xfree86.org.

> I also had another bad experience with MAndrake. I recently downloaded
8.1 
> and tried to install it on my Sony ...  the install starts from the cd
and 
> hangs up on the pcmcia detection. I went on the text mode and found that
the 
> kernel panics on trying to start the pcmcia. Then I started to try other

> tings. I built a floppy-boot disc and put the pcmcia image on it. then
tried 
> the installl and it went thru and I felt a wow .. but it was very
shortlived 
> and the kernel never started again .. same thing  .. pcmcia startup and
the 
> kernel says it has some big problem .. os I am back to my mandrake 8.0 
> without the luxury of an external mouse now.. 

This is a known bug in Mandrake 8.1 (a kernel issue that has since been
fixed).  You can either use their alternatve vaio bootdisk (as it sounds
like you've done) or just run the install with "linux pcmcia=0".  Doing so
after the install will let you boot the installed kernel as well, though
I'd suggest upgrading the kernel if you use pcmcia.  I think that's the
right syntax, there's been a couple of articles about it at
www.mandrakeforum.com, I'd search for it there for a better explanation.

Brian J. Conway
bconway at wpi.edu

"LINUX is obsolete"
     - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992